I divorced the Dancer when I realized that she was serious about not wanting children and because she lacked the ambition that I felt her talent called for.  The Juggernaut divorced me because she needed more security than my life style provided.  The Care Giver, so far, is still very much in love with her husband.

The Dancer was a fashion designer by trade and a rare talent.  We met one Christmas Eve when an extended group of us gathered for an annual evening of Christmas caroling throughout our North-East Bronx neighborhood.  I was smitten as soon as she walked in the door.  We soon discovered that we literally lived only a block away from each other and we knew most of the same people, but our respective paths had never crossed.  A few years later we were married.  

Under the Dancer’s eye and supported by my salary, our home quickly became a show place.  She had an eye for decorating everything.  She dressed with flair and style as the beautiful people of New York City could dress. She was an attractive woman who dressed to become tastefully arresting.  With her, Bloomingdales of New York became far more than a retail store.  It was a new adventure every time we stepped through the doors.  We had dinner parties, cook-outs, pool parties, an array of gay and homosexual friends, and a night life that included theater, night clubs and piano bars. 

We were young and I was enthralled with the things that I learned from her.  Whether she was fully aware of how much I was learning, or perhaps I should say… how much I did not know before we became a couple, I could only guess.   She was bright and quick, but not necessarily a deep dive.  She was the eldest daughter of three siblings, in a family that was far more concerned about the appearance of things than anything else.  For my money she was elegant and knowledgeable about a great many things.   Oh yes… and she could dance like no one I’d ever seen.  My God she could dance.

More than anything else, however, she was also talented. I’d fancied myself an artist at one point, but this woman was a professional.  Her designs and sketches were amazing and I could not wait for her to blossom within her industry.  When she took a job upon graduating from FIT designing knock-offs for the secondary market I was disappointed.  The fact that she was working for the largest producer of attire for companies like Sears and JC Pennys meant nothing to me.   These were last year’s fashions redesigned for mass production by my talented wife.  Immature idiot that I was, instead of being proud of her accomplishments, I fought to hide my disappointment.

Then came the New Year’s Eve Party. 

The Dancer wanted to get dressed up and go out to celebrate.   I wanted to spend the celebration with close friends at home. Unable to resolve this, we finally decided to compromise.  We chose to have a dress up New Year's Eve party at home.  Not quite formal attire, but close. 

To make a long story short, only three or four people showed up.   My friends simply weren’t dress up kind of folks… and perhaps they heard the bell tolling anyway.  We were separated before the next New Year’s Eve. 

I have always said that the reason we split up, was because she didn’t want children.  This was true.  She argued that she was afraid she would lose her figure.  The reality of it was that I didn’t give her much of a chance.  Where she might have changed her mind with time, I was simply done.  I paid her off to assuage my guilt, by giving her damn near everything we had in the separation.  I helped her move into a fancy high rise condominium on the Jersey side of the Hudson River, and in time we got a divorce.  

By then I’d already met the Juggernaut. 

Where the Dancer was elegant and refined, the Juggernaut was drop-dead gorgeous.  She was working as a receptionist down the street from my office on Madison Avenue in Manhattan and rode the same combination of rail and subway lines that I rode each morning.  One morning I finally said hello while waiting to cross the street and we soon became friends.   Soon we were more than friends... and then soon after that I was separated from the Dancer.   If you are thinking there was some hanky-panky going on, it would be easier for me to just admit it and move on.     

The Juggernaut became pregnant almost immediately.  I moved her in to the house that the Dancer had vacated and we began our family.  My divorce was finalized only a few days before our wedding, and we finally moved away from New York.   If this sounds like things happened way too fast and that I was truly being handled by a master… all of that is probably true.  What must be factored into the equation is the fact that I was truly in love with the Juggernaut.   I was absolutely, truly, completely, stars-in-my-eyes in love with this woman.  So much so that I never saw the punch that took me out.

Where the Dancer was comfortable snorkeling along the surface, the Juggernaut was truly a deep diver.  When I first met her, she lacked the experience and opportunities I’d had… but she was always cagey and clever. During our sixteen year marriage, I gradually came to realize that she was genuinely smarter than I was. (Probably still smarter than I am.) But we were a team and I was glad she was on my side.

Two wonderful children, fabulous trips to exotic places, a beautiful and sexy wife… I had it made.  And while the Juggernaut was not in the Dancer’s league, by now she had developed her own style and fashion sense.  She paid attention to everything and I had introduced her to a whole new life style and new people.  Before I knew it she had developed a taste for luxury cars and an upper class life style.  

Meanwhile about five years after our marriage, I was offered an opportunity to join a consulting firm.  Suddenly the regular, reliable salary was gone.  Instead were commissions, and bonuses, and a roller coaster ride of income earnings.   At first things were great.  I’d joined the firm to work with a large client who was fully committed to working with us and our income soared.   Then, a Senate sub-committee went after our client and destroyed the organization.  We went from the penthouse to our own personal recession.  When things got dicey, the Juggernaut took a job working for a former employee of mine.  She’d been home with the children for several years. 

While our consulting company fought its way back to health and profitability, we still experienced periods of extreme highs and extreme lows.  Throughout this period, the Juggernaut steadily grew in her roles and responsibility until she became the organization’s operational director.  She was soon traveling as much as I was and meeting new people.   Oddly enough our work environments had reversed.  When we’d first met, in my corporate life… I was in business attire daily.  As a consultant, I would later shift to mostly business casual attire when I actually left the house… but mostly I worked out of my home office in jeans.  In contrast, the Juggernaut was now attending conference events and meetings where everyone looked their best in business attire.  

I believe it made a difference. 

I would later learn that she had fallen in love with the President of her Board of Directors.  For years I blamed him for my misery, still unable to fully blame her for breaking her marriage vows.  By the time I realized that he had never made any promises to me, I also began to understand that I was also to blame for our failed marriage.   The Juggernaut needed financial security like fish need water… and I had failed to provide it.  The fact that I was happy in my consultant life style did not change the fact that it contributed largely to destroying my marriage.  

Today the Juggernaut and I get along well.  We are not close friends these days, but we are still joined at the children and we communicate well.  She sent me a Sweet Potato Pie during the Christmas holiday. 

Once you get accustomed to someone as capable as the Juggernaut, it is difficult to reacclimate yourself to one such as the Care Giver.  A Certified Nursing Assistant, we were married in 2010.  She does not have the natural beauty or presence of the Juggernaut and she will never have the Dancer’s sense of style or fashion.  She is not a deep diver.  She is not a house keeper and she is not a cook.   

Instead she tries to anticipate my needs, and she lights up when she sees me.  Everything she does, in some way, conveys her love for me.  She also knows how deeply I loved the Juggernaut and she has not let that become a problem.   I am very happy these days and I love her even more now than when we were married.  I know that we are still newlyweds, but with her, I now believe that I was never really loved before.   Both the Dancer and the Juggernaut allowed themselves to be loved… but they never loved me as I am loved by the Care Giver.

This Open Call asked that we examine the reason behind our divorce.  Having been divorced twice, I fully understand the reason for both of them.  I see him in the mirror every day.   And every day I search that mirror to determine if he is any smarter today then he was before.