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Seneca the Younger(er)Adam Weinstein
12/18/14 11:04am
Question for the author or any interested commentors:

How do you know when it's time to throw in the towel on a marriage? I haven't been happy in my marriage for nearly ten years, but we have a school-aged child and I just assumed that I would stick it out until he is old enough to discuss the reasons we might split and what sort of custody we share (I imagine 15 as my hang in there until age).

I guess I figure that if I can cooperate with her enough to have a smooth divorce and shared custody, I can cooperate with her enough to continue sharing the same roof and reducing our joint bills through cohabitation. It's a joyless existence, but I assume it would be worse than the struggle of being a single parent.

Am I wrong, how wrong am I, and how badly am I fucking up my son with this master plan of mine?
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  SeawaySeneca the Younger(er)
  12/18/14 11:24am
  Yes, you are wrong. You are teaching your kid to settle. Don't do that. Teach your kid that life is tough, decisions are tough, divorce is tough, love is tough and in the end they will thank you for it. Hanging on to nothing for the sake of your kid is going to become pretty transparent by the time he is 15. Your son's childhood memories of you will be of you living a "joyless existence," which is not how you want him to see you. Let him see you as someone who could make the difficult decision to know when something was beyond fixing and move on.
  
  Or, talk to your wife and try to figure it out. Waiting around for the right time to bail is not the best plan, man. You only get one shot. You have one chance to make your life happy for you and your son. Try to make that happen.
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  김치전!Seneca the Younger(er)
  12/18/14 11:24am
  My parents divorced when I was in elementary school (~age 7), and both remarried. I think having two models of functional, loving relationships was much more valuable to my sister and me than having married parents. It also seems to me that happy people are inherently better parents.
  
  You seem cool. I bet you're fucking up your son as minimally as any parent has ever fucked up a child.
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IAMBlastedBiggsLostBurnerAdam Weinstein
12/18/14 10:40am
Forgiveness and validity would be the sort of gifts I would give, being a divorced dad myself. These are the sorts of boosts that will allow said dad to look in the mirror and undergo the rigorous soul-searching that is required to help guard against the same mistakes being made in the future. This helps energize the ability to resist that fairy tale bullshit that so many are more than willing to foist on couples......

Or, if he doesn't want that, maybe a gift cirtificate to a strip club? Do they even offer those?
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  Adam WeinsteinIAMBlastedBiggsLostBurner
  12/18/14 10:46am
  I mean, I'm back in Fort Lauderdale, the strip club capital of the world, but 23 1/2 was so long ago. Seriously, a sitter, a steak, and a nice conversation about movies is the hottest thing I can think of right now
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  IAMBlastedBiggsLostBurnerAdam Weinstein
  12/18/14 10:50am
  The years build up, yeah, and when you look back, sometimes you swear it was another person living that life. And after a while, the strip club scene loses some of the gloss that hid the hollowness of the entire enterprise, I'd imagine. At least the sitter/steak/movie discussion offers the chance for different and meaningful experiences.
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Brian FucklerAdam Weinstein
12/18/14 10:36am
I got my recently divorced dad a keurig machine and a bottle of scotch. My girlfriend said they were the saddest gifts she'd ever seen. When I asked her why she replied:

"You're basically telling him to make coffee for one and then go get drunk."
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  Adam WeinsteinBrian Fuckler
  12/18/14 10:48am
  To hell with that. I look forward to the day my boy buys me scotch. I'll fully expect him to pound it with me.
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  Group B-raaaaaaaaaap!Adam Weinstein
  12/18/14 11:37am
  Holy hell, total Deja Vu from about 3 years ago. November 2011 I went shopping to get some provisions for my new single-Dad-of-two apartment. I came home with exactly this: a very small tabletop Christmas tree (for this kids), a few boxes of generic ornaments, a Keurig machine, 3 bottles of Oban 14-year, a 20 oz. steak, and an iPod bridge for my old bookshelf unit (which I am thankful I saved from college). The early-50's woman at the register just looked at me with the saddest eyes, rang me up, and wished me a Merry Christmas.
  
  I went home and did the one thing I had yearned to do for the past 8 years: I cooked and ate a steak, with 2 or 7 scotches, in complete silence. It was lovely and cathartic. Then I put on some Rush (my ex-wife, inexplicably, detested Rush; no one who hates Rush is worth marrying) and decorated that tiny tree.
  
  The next morning I made myself a single cup of regular, black coffee (another staple which had been snuffed, as the coffee purchaser in that marriage had insisted that all coffee should be flavored), and did what any red-blooded Divorced American Dad would do: I went to Toys Я Us and bought my children's love.
  
  So the moral of the story is this: when buying gifts for the recently divorced Dad, don't just assume that our world is suddenly composed of self-pity and morose loneliness. Not all relationships are healthy, some need to be ended for the sake of all involved. And maybe, just maybe, some of us are enjoying ourselves for the first time in a very long while.
  
  If anyone is really struggling with what to get a newly single Dad, a good rule of thumb is anything which is otherwise too frivolous or juvenile for us to justify buying for ourselves. The best gift I received that first Christmas was from an old fraternity brother: a dart blowgun. Not a toy; an honest to goodness blowgun (we often joked about the efficacy of Benadryl-tipped darts in parenting).
  
  Also, don't do what my Mom did; don't offer a Match.com subscription as a gift.
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toothpetardAdam Weinstein
12/18/14 10:32am
This is the stuff that saved me:

http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Arduin…
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  toothpetardtoothpetard
  12/18/14 10:35am
  Single dad too, so these kinds of things are fun for both of us:
  
  http://littlebits.cc/kits/synth-kit
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  toothpetardtoothpetard
  12/18/14 10:36am
  Man, if anyone got us a vacation for christmas we'd probably even write a thank you card.
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Kenhe LoginAdam Weinstein
12/18/14 10:38am
Honey, I'd like to make this Christmas really special. I'm going to buy you either a fur coat, a new car or a diamond necklace. Which would you like?

What I'd really like is a divorce.

I'm sorry I wasn't planning on spending that much money.
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burlivesleftnutAdam Weinstein
12/18/14 11:41am
Fuck it took me 4 years to get over my ex, and there was nothing I could have received that would have snapped me out of that funk. Even when he was still being a total asshole, I was pining. But all it took was for a friend to send me a current picture earlier this year. He was skinny as fuck and looked like he'd been dragged through the desert. Now I only think about him when the subject of divorce/break ups come up... and when I do, it usually makes shudder with revulsion.

So maybe have a friend send you a terribly unflattering picture of your ex.

Other than that...

GIF

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  SillyMeburlivesleftnut
  12/18/14 2:29pm
  Funny how that happens, isn't it? I saw a picture of my ex recently and it seriously took me a minute to recognise him. He looks like shit, to be honest, and although I haven't been pining for quite some time (he's too much of a shit to pine for) it was something I needed to see for some reason.
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  burlivesleftnutSillyMe
  12/18/14 3:28pm
  It was like years of therapy in one god damn image.
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PopChipsAdam Weinstein
12/18/14 11:24am
If feeling down, watch Lion in Winter. One, it's funny on many levels. Two, it will really make you feel better about your own family situation, as you think, "Damn. At least we weren't like that."

Queen Eleanor: How dear of you to let me out of jail.

King Henry II: It's only for the holidays.

Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.
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Elektra NatchiosAdam Weinstein
12/18/14 10:34am
My phone number.
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  Ginger Is A ConstructElektra Natchios
  12/18/14 10:42am
  Zing.
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FredDorfmanAdam Weinstein
12/18/14 11:23am
If you don't have one already, buy an electric guitar. You can get a pretty sweet made in mexico stratocaster for $400 and a cheap amp and spend all your new found free time drinking and learning how to play the blues off of youtube.
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  Adam WeinsteinFredDorfman
  12/18/14 12:11pm
  I have a harmonica and am saving up for a beach apartment, that's good enough for me
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Ginger Is A ConstructAdam Weinstein
12/18/14 10:45am
I am an unmarried lady and I second the King's County guide to moonshine. It's so much more than a book on DIY distilling, it also has really interesting histories of bourbon / whiskey / moonshine, debunks some bourbon myths, reviews lots of distilleries and whiskies, it has recipes (though their Mint Julep recipe is Yankee garbage). Fully recommend if you like bourbon or whiskey, even if you never plan to set up a still in your garage or studio apartment.
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  Bs BaldwinGinger Is A Construct
  12/19/14 2:08am
  Also would recommend to DVR the distilling episodes of Modern Marvels when they pop up.
  
  Also there is something satisfying about watching any of the Engineering Disaster episodes when it isn't my week.
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