Guest Blogger: Divorced - The Dog Walker

 I know it's been a long time since I got to guest blog for Mom. She had been quite busy with a lot of things, like having to deal with Dad who's been having quite a foot and shoulder condition that had him hospitalized twice! I'm pretty sure she has told you all about that hardship. But there's one thing that is really hard for me to deal with right now. As you might have already heard, Puppy Lover and I recently just got divorced!

I was really devastated when this happened. All my life, when growing up attending the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I always thought that divorce wasn't allowed in the church, because according to our religion, we believe in eternal families. But until now, I've learned that sometimes, divorce happens to some people, even LDS members, for a specific purpose like this one. Puppy Lover and I were married for four and a half years and there have been good times we had together as a married couple, like going to Disneyland and Universal Studios back in 2019 with my side of the family. But for quite a long time, she had mental depression that seemed impossible to handle for either of us. I've been very patient with her when it came to trying to be a good husband to her and always living up to my commitments of marriage. 

When we first got married, we lived in my parents' house for a year, and after discussing about how things weren't going well with Puppy Lover of living at my parents' and having to go through the rules that she never grew up with. And I had the turn to live at her parents' house for two years at the time. And then after getting a wage increase at my job and Puppy Lover finding a job that might best suit her, our parents helped us on finding a reasonably cheap apartment that would be close to between our parents' homes. 

Living in an apartment outside of our parents' households seemed like a very huge step for the both of us. Despite finally having a place of our own, I still had to work full time to pay rent and other expenses to keep living at the apartment. Puppy Lover just had a hard time with the idea of me having to go to work or even going to my parent's house for a little bit to get ready for work almost every day. She even started working at a Walmart close to our apartment but only at the same time as my shift goes. I had to make sure that when I got off work, I go straight over to the other Walmart to pick her up, since she gave up on learning how to drive. 

As a matter of fact, she had the tendency to call in from work when she had little deal symptoms. And her work hours have been cut for some reason that we didn't know about. Even on her days off, she was still scared to be living at an apartment by herself on days I worked, so back in April we adopted a cat that would give her some companionship while I was at work. The cat was a bit scared of the both of us at first, but after a little while, the cat was bonding with us, mostly me. It kind of made her sad that the cat was only bonding with me and not with her. I just can't help it if I'm like a total pet magnet! I tried not to be prideful about that, but it just happens to me at times.

Everything seemed to be going well for all these years of our marriage. But a few weeks ago, she decided that she was way too overwhelmed with being married and having to live independently when living in an apartment of our own. She was always calling her Mom and telling her about her problems with things like that and she even tried to hide things from me. It was really hard for me to have to live with my wife when she would refuse to talk about her problems with me. I didn't understand why she wouldn't tell me anything, but probably because she thought that if she didn't tell me anything, then nothing was wrong. And I know that's not how marriages should go. She then admitted that she kissed another guy behind my back and even though I forgave her, it turned out that she just didn't want to be married anymore.

I ended up moving all of my stuff back to my parents' house to live with them again, while Puppy Lover did the same for her parents. For the past few days after that, and even a little bit before Halloween, I ended up dressing myself up in different costumes while I'm at work. A couple of the costumes I wore were to show how depressed I was with having to deal with divorce. I dressed myself like a sad clown and Napoleon Dynamite. And there were even those times that I dressed up in happy ways to show how much I've been trying to overcome divorce. I even talked with some people about my problem and they have given me some encouraging advice. But I digress. Anyway, with me dressing up at work, it was very impressive to a lot of the coworkers around me, just because I've worked at Walmart for about seven years now and they thought I just made their day and they know how much of a hard worker I am.

I sometimes wish people would make my day too. However, people have made my day just recently before. Remember back in 2019 with my Capstone project and the judges really loved what I did and they wanted a copy of my book? Well, Mom finally helped me publish it on Amazon and we got the first paperback copy delivered to us. As a goodbye gift to Puppy Lover's side of the family, I gave each of her sisters, and her parents a copy of my book for them to read. They were really excited to have the book, and also a very sad to see me and Puppy Lover end our marriage. Her side of the family really enjoyed being around me for all these years, maybe because I gave them some good tastes in entertainment, like books, treats, and many more. 

Despite the farewell, I hope that they always remember me. Well, since I have done that, I should change my life too. My family has told me that I'll be able to find another woman who not only wants to marry me but who's also willing to live up to her commitments of marriage. I'm thinking after New Year's, I might go to a Singles Ward, go on the Mutual Dating app or be set up on a blind date. I'm still going through a lot of hard things with my life right now, but hopefully I'll eventually  get over them and be happy again.