Just a Thought

The wife and I are heading out on short vacation on Friday, driving the 6 hours to Chicago, leaving the kids with her mom, planning to come back on Monday. I know this drill as we've done maybe 10 weekend trips since our first daughter was born nearly 8 (!) years ago now, and I'm really ready for another one. The next 36 hours can't go fast enough.

If you're like me and most of American men in their 30's, you just get tired. You go on a long weekend vacation with your wife like this, sans children, and you have a little too much fun. You get drunk once or twice and actually get to sleep in instead of waking up way too early (which feels like it triples your hangover). Hell, sometimes if I have to wake up after drinking (which is rare, thankfully), I try to wake up extra-early so that I'm still drunk just to avoid that awful feeling. But even better than sleeping in after a bender, you'll get to sleep in after going to be sober. And that feels even better. And waking up slowly, gradually over the course of an hour instead of rising with a jolt, like a school bus accident, with kids screaming.

And after this four-day vacation (because your wife doesn’t want to be away from your kids for a whole week), you come back refreshed and when you see your kids, you’re … well, you’re really excited to see them, because you missed them. Remember: they’re your kids, not other people's kids, so you actually like them. And everything will be great with the kids.

For a few days.

And then, after about three or four days with the kids, you think “Wow. I’m ready to go on vacation without them again.” Luckily for you, you’re not a woman, or you’d feel guilty about having this thought. Instead of feeling guilty, you start to scheme. How can I get this again? How can I get my parents and my in-laws to take my children for 3-day weekends every single weekend? But your parents aren't going for it.

But then you’ll think: wouldn’t it be amazing if we could come up with a system where you could have your kids for three or four days, and then get rid of them for three or four days. What kind of amazing nirvana would that be?

And then you realize that divorce is the answer.

Look. I love my wife dearly. And she's cool; I like hanging out with her; like doing shit. But damn if it ain’t tempting to leave her to get this awesome 3 on, 4 off deal. It's outrageous all the fun shit I can imagine myself doing if I only had my kids half the time. The 50% divorce rate so widely quoted almost makes sense to me now. You could be married to Helen of Freakin’ Troy and that would be almost too tempting to pass up.