The divorce

Bad Choices Make Good Stories: Going to New York, Chapter 10

"When people divorce, it's always such a tragedy. At the same time, if people stay together it can be even worse."

Monica Bellucci

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"A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there's less of you."

Margaret Atwood

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"Divorce is just the most awful thing in the world."

John Denver

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"Divorce is probably as painful as death."

William Shatner

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"I was so devastated by my second divorce that I had a nervous breakdown."

Jane Fonda

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"People that go through what I went through and people going through divorce, it's really a difficult process; it's heartbreaking and it hurts really bad. It can really mess with your head."

David Arquette

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"Breakups are a horrible thing for almost everybody I know. For someone who is a love addict, it's debilitating."

Alanis Morissette

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"To get over my divorce, I got a prescription to live at the Playboy Mansion for a while."

James Caan

Year after year, I told myself that I wasn't going to put up with her crazy bullshit anymore.

I told myself that the next time she had one of her totally pointless, unreasonable, uncalled-for tantrums, I would get a divorce.

But then the next time we had a huge fight, because she didn't want to go to the movies, or she accused me of purposely buying the wrong kind of peanut butter, or I supposedly fucked a whore in the backseat during the few minutes my phone had no signal, I always felt like I would be totally overreacting if I got a divorce because she didn't want to go to the movies.

That just sounded so silly: Why did you get divorce? Because my wife didn't want to go to the movies with me.

But I was really just making excuses, because getting a divorce and totally changing my life was scary. She had managed to drive away all my friends with her tantrums.

If she didn't want to go see a movie, I figured maybe I could go with my friend Kenny.

But she became insanely jealous even when I hung out with other guys. She acted like any time I did not totally focus all my attention on her, and I dared to speak to another human being, I was doing something wrong, and it had to be met with fierce vengeance. 

Even when I talked on the phone with my mother in Germany, Donna acted like my mother was "the other woman." She always accused me of conspiring against her with my mother somehow.

And she often asked me, if I had to choose between Donna and my mother, who would I pick?