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March 2017 was a weird as fuck month for me. My ex and I broke up at the very beginning of the month, around the 3rd-4th, and for financial reasons she lived in the apartment until the 30th. So we were broken up, ostensibly divorced, but living together for about 26 days. Want to make it weirder? Our four-year wedding anniversary was within that month. I think we watched a movie that night, largely in silence. It was one of the weirdest 26-day stretches of my life, and I’ve had more than a few of those.
Somewhere in there, across one of about 6–7 fights that occurred in that month, I said something back to her like, “The vows say sickness and health.” See, her argument, which would be mostly but not entirely right, was that we were ending because I had problems with alcohol — which I do, although at this moment I haven’t drank for 17 days or so, so that’s cool. But yes, I do. Now, to say that’s the only reason we broke up would be to absolve her of relationship entirely, which isn’t right either. Relationships are two-way streets, even if one person sometimes drinks 10 IPAs before 6pm. And the vows do say “sickness” — which alcoholism is — and “health.”
This brings us to an interesting intersection though. In the last four-five years, as I’ve navigated my own life, my career, and a new relationship that became a marriage, I’ve run into people who “had it” with…
