Presents for Your Ex: A Gift Guide

Not everyone totally hates their ex-spouse. Shocking, I know! If you are in that (tiny) minority, you might be brainstorming holiday gifts right about now. You want your gift to be appropriate — not too extravagant or intimate, but also not too impersonal. The best way to strike that balance is of course through humor. I’ve rounded up a couple ideas if you’re stumped.

When you broke up, did your ex-wife’s personal anthem become Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together?” Why not commemorate that special time with this lyric art so she can look at it, chuckle, shake her head and say, “Too true, Taylor. Too true.”

Looking for more than just lyrics? Well here you go. Oh yeah, the Taylor Swift fan art community is expansive and it is emotional.

Not into Taylor? (Are you hearing impaired or something?) Fair enough. How about something to really jazz up the former love of your life’s cubical? Look no further than this world’s greatest ex-husband mug.

Do you guys have the kind of playful relationship where you can look back and laugh about all the never ending arguments and screaming matches you’ve had over the years? Then this tasteful candle flipping the bird might be the gift for you.

Did you read how Kaley Cuoco covered her wedding tattoo with a giant mothafter filing for divorce? Yes, a moth. Don’t give your ex a moth tattoo gift certificate. Instead, go with this nonpermanent happily divorced sticker. You’re not going to have to get a sticker lasered off your neck.

Worried your former ball and chain isn’t really working through his feelings? What better gift to help him get those cathartic tears flowing than Adele’s new album 25?

Speaking of British musicians, The Beatles said “all you need is love.” Boy did those billionaires get it wrong. Love fades. You know what doesn’t? Pizza. Express that wise sentiment with this love fades, pizza Is forever t-shirt.

I don’t know how to properly preface this one but here is a tiny coffin for your wedding rings. You can, I don’t know, bury it? Or display it? I’m not really sure what the endgame is for this gift, but it’s available for purchase if you want it.  There was a company, for many years, that would melt your wedding ring down and turn it into a working bullet (GodDammo was their name).  They went out of business a few years ago. I can’t imagine why.

Odds are, god willing, you’re no longer living together. To celebrate that, a great housewarming gift is some cleansing sage. Your ex can smudge and cleanse to their heart’s content and start with a fresh, clean slate in their new place, all thanks to you (I guess in more ways than one).

Finally, what better gift than a person to replace you? Splash out the big bucks and buy your ex a Match.com or eHarmony subscription. If you’re on good enough terms you can help your ex write his or her profile. Then maybe get one for yourself, because why not.  Just remember, I do prenups too.  

Respectfully,
James J. Sexton

9 Elevator Speeches to Put Your Divorce in a Nutshell

You know that awkward moment when you don’t feel like talking about your divorce but somebody asks and you don’t want to be impolite? I mean when you’re past the “leave me alone” stage, but not quite to the “everything’s actually fine” stage. It’s that murky middle area when the divorce is still fresh—and everyone keeps asking uncomfortable questions?

Well, to handle that, enter the elevator pitch! Elevator speeches or elevator pitches are known as such because the whole point is brevity: can you get through them in the time it takes to ride the elevator (right before you walk away as quickly as humanly possible). While the elevator speech helps the upwardly mobile (haha, see what I did there?) make their point by the time they get their floor, it helps you do exactly the same thing—make the point quickly, minimizing the risk of tears, breakdowns, embarrassing rants, etc.

Here are a few of the best divorce elevator speeches I’ve come across so far. Feel free to use!

If You Still Like Your Ex as a Person

• “We now know there are things that prevent us from being married to each other. It’s not one or the other’s fault, and we hope the best for each other.”
• “S/He’s a wonderful person, and we’re glad for the time we had together, but we’ve decided it’s best for both of us if we head different directions now.”

If You Don’t

• “I finally figured out that I should matter.”
• “I found out where the missing money was going.”
• “Ashley Madison.”

If You Don’t Feel Like Sharing

• “We grew apart.”
• “It just didn’t work out.”
• “I’m going through a divorce. I don’t feel much like talking about it, but I truly appreciate your kind words and support.”
• “It is what it is.”

Have a good one to add, or any other tips for dealing with stuff post-divorce? I’m all ears! Tweet to me or leave a comment below.

For more of my commentary on dealing with life after divorce, check out my recent posts “How to Make New Friends after Your Divorce” and 

Getting a divorce? Feel free to contact me for advice about that, too.

Respectfully,
James J. Sexton

Cheer Up, Hallo-Weiner! Halloween for Divorcees

As a holiday, Halloween is one of the least depressing ones out there. I mean, this is a day that is designed to support people embracing alter egos, coming out of their shells, experimenting, letting the hair down—you get the picture.

Halloween is not a time for reflection (you’ve done enough of that) nor does it require a lot of awkward family time (if you’re in the middle of a divorce, you could use a break from that). Instead, Halloween is an opportunity to have some non-reflective fun, and probably get a little creative, drunk, or both. And what could be a better distraction from your crumbling marriage than a sugar high and a lot of weird costumes?! Here’s what you do.

If You Have the Kids

• Trick-or-Treating. The classic Halloween activity, though it has become a bit worrisome in recent years as people are advised to be more and more careful. If you live in a safe area, you should have no qualms, surely, about taking your kids out begging for candy in the dark—but if there’s any doubt, perhaps stick to one of the alternatives.
• Throw a Kids’ Party. Cupcake decorating, Halloween games, even create a haunted house with peeled grapes standing in for eyeballs—why not go the whole nine yards. After all, now that you’re divorced, you need to REALLY make an effort to make sure you’re the Fun Parent.
• “Scary” movie marathon. Age-appropriate scary movies, of course—ie. no need to drag out Freddy Kruger if the kids are under five. No, in all seriousness, if you’re hosting your kids and possibly their friends for Halloween night, there’s almost nothing better than Nightmare before Christmas or a selection of Halloween Specials on Netflix, some candy, popcorn and fizzy apple juice—you get to chill out and everybody’s happy.
• Scavenger hunt. If you have a bit of time to spare, putting together a scavenger hunt for candy or small prizes or whatever is pretty fun. Write out a sequence of clues, and place them in and around your house for the kids to find, accompanied by treats along the way—with the final treat being a giant pile of candy OR a giant pizza and Halloween movie. Total win.

If You Don’t Have the Kids (or if You Don’t Have Kids at All)

• Make an amazing Halloween-themed dinner party. I once went to this dinner party where the hostess dressed up like Morticia and served six courses of things like Jack O’Lantern Soup and Poisoned Apple Pie – and it was all delicious and it was all really fun to eat and talk about. (I mean, the adult palate gets so neglected at Halloween time, seriously.) If I wasn’t so lazy I would do this.
• Throw a Grownups’ Costume Party. Making your friends dress up can either make them love you or hate you, depending on your friends; you really have to make this call for yourself. One tip if you decide to do this: leave it pretty open as to what people can dress as. The worst thing is if you specify people should dress up as either pirates or monkeys, and then everyone comes as Sexy Donald Trump. Just let them go nuts.
• Bar crawl (in costume of course). Feel like embarrassing yourself and/or your friends? Organize a bar crawl in costume, which demands that people actually be seen out in public in full Heidi/Edward Scissorhands/Sexy Donald Trump attire, a fact that just adds to the general fun.
• Halloween cocktails. Just want to get drunk with your friends, and Halloween is a good excuse? No problem. There are actually a LOT of Halloween cocktails out there, like a Candy Corn Martini, a Smoking Zombie, or THIS super-weird, super great Glow-in-the-Dark Cocktail. Bottoms up!
• Scary movie marathon. Okay, now you get to break out the REAL scary movies, and these days there are a lot to choose from. Just to help you out, here’s a list of the most popular horror movies released in 2015, and HERE’s a list (I actually recommend this one more) of the best horror films of all time.

Have something to add, ask, or some inconsistency to point out? I LOVE IT. I’m all ears. Leave a comment below or tweet to me.

Respectfully,
James J. Sexton

An Open Letter to Lindsey Bluth Funke

Dear Lindsay,

I’m not really sure where to start with your marriage to Tobias so I guess I’ll go with: what? I mean seriously, Lindsay, what? And why? Also how? And finally, him?

I know you didn’t exactly have a great family life what with having a mother that was as critical as she was drunk and a father that was always absent. But there are a lot of people out there that had a rough start in life, yet they didn’t end up marrying a failed doctor turned aspiring Blue Man Group cast member, who was also a Never Nude. And probably gay.

I know George and Lucille weren’t the best parents, but marrying Tobias as an act of rebellion was punishing you more than it was punishing them. I suppose at one point Tobias had qualities that were attractive to you. He was successful once; let us not forget he was the world’s first analrapist (that’s analyst AND therapist) before he lost his license after giving CPR to a man not actually having a heart attack.

You thought motherhood would bring you happiness but the road there was not an easy one. Sure you were pregnant dozens of times before, but having your daughter Maeby ended up costing over a hundred thousand dollars and put a real strain on your marriage.  Then it turned out, like your own mother, parenthood wasn’t for you and you felt adrift in life. Sure the Teamocil helped numb all feelings and shut down your sex drive for a while, but it didn’t fix things. You hated motherhood, you were in a sexless, and seemingly loveless marriage, and then you all moved in with your insane family. Yet for some reason, you still didn’t hightail it the heck out of there.

Why? I suppose there was the whole job thing, in that you didn’t have one and it’s difficult to pay rent and buy diamond cream with no paycheck. But it’s not like Tobias was supporting you either, as a failed actor doesn’t bring in the big bucks.

We keep dancing around the big issue here, and it’s not helping anyone. So here’s the thing. Tobias? Tobias is maybe gay. He’s a man’s man. He wants a banger in the mouth. He said so himself dozens of times and in varyingly crude euphemisms. You tried an open relationship with disastrous and often humiliating results. Yet still you stayed. And when Tobias left you and escaped to Reno, you followed him, inexplicably. 

Later you briefly Eat Pray, Love-d your way out of the relationship, but it didn’t stick. And after a lot more dating blunders and briefly (unknowingly) becoming a call girl, here you are, still married to Tobias.

You made a huge mistake, Lindsay.  It’s time to accept that and get out of dodge. Tobias can’t financially support you as he has still not gotten his hands on any meaty man parts, so it’s not like you need his money. Maeby is an adult now and it’s not like you ever cared about her wellbeing in the first place.

There is nothing forcing you to stay, and you are master of your own destiny. I think if you remind Tobias he too controls his future, you won’t even have to litigate the divorce. Because I think when you get down to it, both of you agree this marriage fell apart a long time ago, and there’s not a lot to fight over.

Find a good mediator and get the ball rolling. You have no real assets to speak of and I think alimony is off the table as long as you get this settled quickly, in case you end up winning that Congressional bid. Custody isn’t an issue as Maeby’s a grown up. You live separate lives anyway, so make it official. Cut ties, move away (maybe DC!) and start fresh.

So what do you say Lindsay? Should I have the “Lindsay Love Independence” banner made for your divorce party? I can get the celebratory hot ham water going on the stove if you want.

Don’t be nervous, Lindsay. Your whole life lies ahead of you. Remember, somewhere over the rainbow, there’s another rainbow. It’s time Lindsay, it’s time.

Respectfully,

James J. Sexton

An Open Letter to Betty Draper, Everybody's Ex

Dear Betty Draper,

I don’t know why exactly I’m compelled to do an Open Letter to you, Betty Draper, except that you are one of those women who is both tragic, and—well, mostly tragic. (What can I say, tragic works well for this series.) When you appeared in our lives on the first episode of Mad Men in 2007, aka 1960, you struck a chord with the public as someone who a) we disliked, but not for being a villain, b) was interesting anyway, and c) was possibly being the first woman who has ever occupied that role on a major TV series. We usually get rid of the women we don’t like on television series, but not you!

In a way, this Open Letter is an homage to your ability to be a harsh, superficial, dependent, interesting, strong, very compelling character. Because so much of the show is focused on Don Draper, we do get the estranged-spouse view of you from a pretty early point in your history. And it has to be said that you made a fantastic fictional (ex-)spouse, because—much like pretty much everyone sees their ex during and just after divorce—you are both hate-able and lovable, and really good at being both.

It should be said that over seven seasons (a decade on the show) your growth actually challenged expectations and made you a representation of something that is also convincing and also slightly scary: our ex-spouse having become a much better person. 

The 1953 to 1963: The Don Era

Betty, the saddest thing about your marriage to Don Draper—and there are many sad things to choose from—is that we can guess based on his mostly monotone demeanor and your mostly monotone personality, that you married him for financial and emotional stability. However, what you got instead was an extremely unstable ride.

As a husband, Don Draper was pretty much the worst: he lied, he cheated, he had a secret identity. He spied on you via your therapist. He pretty much pulled out all the stops, and you were left clinging on for dear life while trying to keep your hair in a perfect shining helmet. You knew he was cheating, but what were you going to do? He made the money. You had no earning capacity to speak of. You had two children together. Such is the problem of the Don Era.

But even as we sympathized with you, Betty, we also felt some ambivalence about your complicity in the whole situation. You made it your business to be beautiful in exchange for security, saying “as long as men look at me like that, I’m earning my keep.” That’s probably not the wisest choice in a marriage. You taught your daughter to let men call the shots with gems like “You don’t kiss boys. Boys kiss you.” On one hand, it was the sixties. On the other: you weren’t helping.

So when you finally kicked Don out of the house, and went to Reno for a quickie divorce, we were psyched! Except for one tiny detail: you were leaving your sexist and controlling protector for another sexist and controlling protector. Less sexist, less controlling, but still.

As a divorce attorney, and as a human, I saw all the problems piling up for you as soon as you made the decision to escape into the arms of someone new (and by new, I mean kind of old).

1963-1970: The Henry Era

Frankly, Betty, things got a little weird for me when you married the old guy. You didn’t change your ways much at first, and this was disappointing. No learning more about the finances of the house, no starting a career for yourself or anything of that nature. In fact, the main thing you did was get jaded.

You also managed to stay in the house, which was owned by Don, for a much longer time than anyone expected. I think we all expected Don to hire a divorce lawyer that would make sure you got nothing, but instead you won the divorce—although the show wasn’t too specific about numbers—and then you pushed the boundaries by staying in the house past the time you should have left, which unsurprisingly caused some trouble.

But when you and Henry finally moved out, you underwent a sort of transformation in which you started caring about stuff. You got an opinion about the Vietnam War. You went into the hovels of New York City in search of a missing girl. You started saying things like, “You’re sorry you forgot to inform me what I’m supposed to think. Guess what? I think all by myself.” You entered a normal weight category. We liked you more.

And then, Betty, just in time to screw over Husband #2, you became the symbolic ex-spouse again. You and Don reunited for one awkward sexual encounter, which I admit, I was kind of rooting for in a weird way—I wanted you guys to work it out. So from the standpoint of pure entertainment I was okay with that. But you also started flirting with the teenage neighbour-boy, and just, I don’t know, you lost us.

And then you got cancer.  That was, without question, unfortunate. But, from a sentimentality standpoint, it was a solid move.  We liked you again.

Why You’re Everybody’s Ex

The thing about exes—be they ex-spouses, ex-partners, ex-lovers or what have you—is that unless you stay real, actual friends, eventually the person comes to be more of a caricature than a real person. Certain parts are drawn larger than life, so they can entertain you and help explain the relationship’s failure; our exes are two-dimensional most of the time (much like you, Betty Draper), until we have to really engage with them, and then it gets complicated. Because the caricature of the ex, and the actual person, are two different things.

With your blank-faced stare, Betty, you are the perfect canvas of an ex: throughout the seven seasons of Mad Men, we could interpret you as hateworthy or loveworthy depending on perspective. And really, the hate and love on the show are never that clearly defined anyway—a point that probably resonates with most divorcees.

Respectfully,
James J. Sexton

Have something to add or disagree with? Want me to counsel you through a divorce? Leave a comment below, call me or tweet to me.

For more irreverent commentary and real advice on dealing with your ex, check out my recent posts “5 Tips for Co-Parenting” and “Your Partner: The Narcissist.”

To read more of the Open Letters series and my other stuff on the Huffington Post, start here.