I Will Suffer in the Future for Being Glad About This Because Karma Is a Bitch

I believe I have mentioned before that I like to drive fast.  Usually about 10 mph over the speed limit. 

So a few days ago, when I was driving the midlife crisis mobile from Phoenix to Flagstaff to pick up LegalMist's daughter for the holiday break, I was very sad when, about 20 miles north of Phoenix, I came up behind a Highway Patrol officer and had to slow down and drive behind him, going “only” 75 mph (which was the speed limit).

About 70 slow and frustrating miles later, I was still driving right at the speed limit behind the Highway Patrol car, when a gray car came zooming up behind me and passed me on the right and was about to pass the car in front of me, too, when he suddenly realized that it was a Highway Patrol car, so he slowed down and got in line behind the cop but in front of me.

About 30 slow and frustrating miles after that, Gray Car Guy just couldn’t take the “slow” pace any longer.  He passed the cop, slowly, on the right.  Then sped up a little.  No lights.  Sped up a little more.  Still no lights.  But the cop was maintaining the same pace as Gray Car Guy.  And I was going slightly slower, but not a lot, staying behind the Highway Patrol car and watching to see how this played out.  Gray Car Guy sped up a bit more (probably doing about 85-90 by now), and the cop turned on his lights and pulled him over.

I felt a little bad for Gray Car Guy--but if I’m honest, I was really glad, because I got to be a speed demon the rest of the way to Flagstaff, secure in the knowledge that the Highway Patrol car was busy giving Gray Car Guy a speeding ticket.

Trump's Election Caused My Divorce

I told my husband that I wanted a divorce back in October.  I asked if he would like to go to a mediator to try to settle all the issues and then file a consent decree, instead of litigating everything in court. He refused to talk about it and refused to even talk about when he might be willing to talk about it, saying, "this is a bad time" and  "maybe after the holidays."

Truth be told, I might've deferred to my soon-to-be-ex-husband's desire to wait until January to discuss divorce, but for Trump's election.... See, I knew that I wasn't going to change my mind, so waiting seemed a little pointless. But I typically like to try to make others happy, so I waited a couple of weeks....

...until, on November 8, the unthinkable happened:  Trump got elected.

I am a hardcore hippie liberal who supported Sanders in the primary.  My soon-to-be-ex-husband is a Republican.

I can't stand Trump.  Policies aside, he seemed to me to be a racist, misogynistic, power-hungry, bullying narcissist with a tendency to overreact to perceived slights and with no experience, little knowledge, and no interest in learning anything about foreign policy.  In short, completely unqualified to be President, and a jerk besides.  I am terrified that he will start a global nuclear war in reaction to some perceived insult from a foreign leader.

My soon-to-be-ex-husband liked him. During the primary season, as we were arguing about Trump, I told him that if Trump got elected, I'd divorce him. I was kind of serious even then.  I have a hard time understanding how we have drifted so far apart in our core values.  He seemed to admire Trump's blustering, bullying, assaholic ways.  I noticed more and more that the things I dislike most about my soon-to-be-ex-husband are traits that he shares with Trump...

I never thought it would happen.  But it did. They announced that Trump had won the election.

And suddenly, I felt that I had to be divorced, ASAP.

See, I can deal with a certain amount of sadness in my life.  I can take a sorry excuse for a marriage if the world outside my home is tolerable.  I can take an intolerable president (Bush, for example), if my home life and mariage are tolerable.  But when both are intolerable, I can't take it.

When my marriage first really became intolerable, part way through Bush's second term, I got very depressed.  I was barely functional and many days would not have gotten out of bed except that I had kids to care for.  I never want to feel that way again.

Then Obama got elected, life was cheerier in general, and I became much more functional and less depressed, though still unhappy in my marriage.

But when we elected the narcissstic orange man as POTUS, despair set in.  I cannot take four to eight years of both my home life and the world at large sucking.  I would likely kill myself from despair if forced to endure both.

I can't control who is president, but I can damn sure control whether I'm married or not.

So, two days after the election, I filed for divorce.

It's not really fair to say Trump "caused" my divorce.  I would have ended up divorced eventually.  But his election was the precipitating event.

I want to be happily divorced for at least some amount of time before the nuclear holocaust begins.