Breaking up at a Bad Time: The Agony and the Awkwardness.

No one has ever experienced the things you do, kicky - not even remotely.

An hour? That's nothing.

After five miserable years of emotional abuse, I finally decided to leave my husband. (My first marriage...a couple of lifetimes ago.) I spent a whole week dividing up all our belongings, packing up everything, notifying family and friends, cleaning out the savings account and making arrangements for a place to stay in Oklahoma. (I was living in Plano, TX at the time.) Finally, everything was finished, and I was ready to leave.

And the worst blizzard in the history of North Texas hit.

There was so much snow and ice that I couldn't even walk two steps out my door. Even if I had made it to my car, I couldn't have gone anywhere. They closed the highways.

I had to stay in that f*cking condo with the person I hated most in the world for five...count 'em...five straight days.

I thought I was gonna explode.

In college I was seeing this (crazy nympho redheaded) girl off-and-on for a year or so. I thought it was a lot of fun -- we drank a lot, had sex all the time, talked about who we'd like to have threesomes with and occasionally tried (and failed) to make it happen. Turns out she was getting pretty attached, though I didn't really know it until it was too late.

Anyway, she goes off to Europe one summer. Unbeknownst to me, she paid a little visit to one of the women we talked about a lot and told her to stay away from me. Beknownst to me, she packed a large box of rubbers for her trip.

Two days after she left I was sleeping with the woman she'd gone to visit. Pretty much lived with her that summer.

Redhead knew it was going on -- I told her on the phone. The night she got back into town she came over to see what was up with us, we went out and got drunk, and then went back to my place to have sex.

The next day the other woman came over for the same thing, we went out and got drunk, and then went back to my place to have sex.

The day after that, redhead drove by in the middle of the day. I was out on the porch having a beer and chain smoking, so she saw I was home and pulled into the driveway, beaming. She sauntered up to the porch and smiled, biting into an apple I guess she'd had in the car. I told her I didn't want to see her any more.

She threw the apple into the bushes and left.

Pretty bad timing, I think.

I'm married to the other woman, though, so there is that...

Larry David encouraged a man to break up with his sister-in-law the day after her aunt's funeral.

My thoughts are there are very few inappropriate times to break up with someone (the day someone has died, perhaps is one of them).

It's worse to know that someone waited to crush you until after Valentines Day or whatever. Knowing you spend the last week looking like a fool.


But in my opinion, if you want to break up with someone you just do it. Clean and simple. Cut it off fast and clean.

I knew someone who's husband was cheating on her, but she had no idea, but he started drinking on the plane on the ground in NY and as they were taxiing into the air for the LONG plane ride to Japan- he informed her that he was having an affair, loved the other woman and wanted a divorce. She said, as soon as it was out of his mouth- you could see he realized what an awful trip he had put both of them in for. She got off at the connecting airport and flew back to the US alone.

Nothing so drastic in my own life, but on my 21st birthday, my boyfriend (at the time) inadvertantly told me at dinner in the very nice restaurant we were in, that he had only very recently slept with someone else (ours was supposed to be a sexually monogamous relationship- I had told him that if he wanted to sleep with anyone else just tell me- and I'd bow out). All very reasonable, but of course it couldn't happen that way.
So he was talking to me about the movie- "Being There" with Peter Sellers as if I had seen it with him. I hadn't- and I asked him when/where/with whom he actually HAD seen it. He wasn't a good liar and it came out that he'd seen it with someone else and had subsequently had sex with her in the car on the way home.
I didn't get too, too upset, as this girl was a totally different type than me (very jockish- to an almost masculine degree)- so I just looked at him, very confused, but almost amused and said, "If that's what you like, what the hell are you doing with me?"
We started laughing- but to this day I can't watch the movie "Being There" without feeling pangs- and I love Peter Sellers- so for me that's the real loss.

At a folk festival.
On an island.
With an hourly ferry back to the mainland.
With all my stuff in his car on the mainland.

I should have waited til we got back to the car, but noooo. Hadda lose my temper.