Ex Drama and the Information Guidelines

Saturday, after our dress shopping adventure, Mr. Curls was supposed to meet up with a friend of his who he hasn't seen in quite some time. The friend was at this other guy's house with a group of people and the plan was for Mr. Curls to meet him there.

After we got back to my house, and after I reassured Mr. Curls I wouldn't feel ditched, he headed off to meet his friend. Twenty minutes later, my phone rang. Caller ID said it was him and my first thought was, "huh?" and my second thought was, "uh oh." I figured there was no reason for him to call me unless his plans fell through, right?

I answered the phone and could immediately tell by the sound of his voice that something wasn't right.

"What's up?" I asked. "Did your buddy bail on you?"

"No," he sighed. "Worse. I'm not sure what to do."

"What happened?"

"My friend just called to let me know my ex is there." That meant his most recent ex. The ex who, just last week, had some chic pretend to be her to dodge getting served divorce papers. Yes, that's right, the lady's a nut job (my words, not his). Important lesson, my friends, this is why you don't marry someone you've only known for five months. As much as I like Mr. Curls, marrying that gal was a really, really stupid thing to do. Now he's paying the price.

"Ah," I said. "I see."

"My friend went to his buddy's with someone else, so he doesn't have his car. He doesn't mind leaving, but I'd have to pick him up and I just have a bad feeling that she'd follow him out or something and..." he let it trail off.

"Yeah. That would suck."

"Except, I was supposed to hang out with him tonight and I was really looking forward to it and now my plans are wrecked." The part he didn't say, but that I understood was that this was yet another way she was having a negative impact on his life. Bad enough she won't cooperate with getting a divorce - it's not like she actually wants to be with him, not like they've even seen each other in months, etc. - now she had to ruin his plans to catch up with an old friend.

His reaction to the whole thing was like he'd gotten sucker punched. Part of me felt a little unsympathetic given that whole marrying someone he'd only known for five months thing and the fact that, when it comes to hasty romances like that, there's often reasons why people rush in and those reasons aren't often good. So, a little bit of just deserts. But, most of me cares for him and sees why he did what he did and though I think it wasn't his brightest idea, it comes down to being human, etc. etc. The majority of me just felt bad for him.

In the end, he decided to just take a rain check with his friend and avoid the situation completely. No need to set himself up for drama, and I was glad the timing worked so the ex got there before him and his friend was able to warn him. It sucked that he couldn't hang out, but it would've sucked more if he had already been there when she walked in the door.

We talked on the phone again once he got home and we talked a bit about what I needed/wanted to know about the situation at this point. He's told me the broad strokes already, as well as a few details that are important for me to know - like how she screwed around on him, confessed, and how he went to the doctor the next day to get a full STD panel which, thankfully, came back clean. But, as I told him, I don't really want details, particularly not now.

I feel like I know what I need to know for where our relationship is, and I reminded him that he should tell me anything else that would be important, but I don't want all the gory details. I don't want to know what their wedding was like, or plans they made for their life together, or any of that type of thing. It's the sort of information that wouldn't have direct bearing on our relationship and the sort of thing that can get under one's skin and fester. I don't want to spend a lot of time thinking about how he loved his exes. It can't do me any good.

We talked about what I wanted to know. He talked about wanting to protect me from the drama, and I appreciate that. He got himself into trouble and, one step at a time, he's getting it sorted out. I neither need nor want to get involved.

Different couples have different ideas about what they need to know about each other. There are those who want to know everything about everything. There are those who look at the past as the past and the only important part is today onward. For me, I'm somewhere between, but with a healthy appreciation of Cliff's Notes. I don't need to know everything about the 2nd ex. I know the wedding was hasty. I know the marriage itself was viable for about four months. I know that by the time they'd known each other a year, Mr. Curls was beginning to realize he'd gone down a bad path. I know that as of the time he and I met, one of the things he wanted more than anything else was to be finished with this person and move on and have a life she had no part in.

I also know that the experience made him take a hard look at his issues and the choices he'd made to get him into that situation. He's determined not to repeat the same mistake and we've talked more than once about the benefit of taking it slow and really getting to know each other before we do big relationship things. We've talked about how being in a relationship with someone for over a year is a good thing to do before planning to get married. Sometimes one has to learn things the hard way, but the important thing is that those things are learned. In this case, he just had to learn it the really hard, painful, disastrous way.

All I can say is Yay! for the vasectomy, 'cause the last thing he or I need is to have this person involved in his life as baby mama #2. Thank goodness for small mercies.