Unexpected Joy, Part 2

What a Difference a Year Makes: How Life's Unexpected Setbacks Can Lead to Unexpected Joy
by Bob Guiney

(Page 2 of 3)

I don't remember the following week clearly. I must have gone to work, I must have eaten something, but maybe I didn't. The night before the meeting with her attorney, I felt a little more hopeful. I thought that maybe if she saw me again she would change her mind and agree to another try. We had always been such a team. I remembered one night, years earlier, during the height of the grunge era, when we went with our best friend Kevin Donathan ("Dok") to a Pearl Jam concert without any tickets. "We'll get in," I had assured Jennifer. We clung together as we wove through the crowd in the parking lot, looking for scalped tickets. We almost got our asses kicked by some roadies who hated scalpers and their customers.

"I'll find tickets somehow," I told her.

"No, I will," she said, laughing. We loved to outdo each other. She told me to stay put, and then disappeared. Fifteen minutes later, she showed up with Dok and a lanky guy wearing ripped-up jeans and a flannel shirt. Jennifer had met him while standing outside the entrance to the arena.

The guy was Dave Abruzzese, Pearl Jam's drummer at the time. I was completely blown away! I was like, "Hello, Dave."

"You with this beautiful lady?" he said. I nodded, too surprised to speak. "Too bad for me," he said. Then he took us onto the tour bus for tickets and then through the back entrance to great seats, just to the right of the stage. I think about this the way Jon Bon Jovi says he recalls meeting Bruce Springsteen: almost like a religious experience-but not quite!

This memory was Jennifer's memory, too. We had shared a life that I was sure she would remember once we were in the same room together. We had so much history-maybe too much.

But when I arrived at the attorney's office, Jennifer looked up from her chair in the reception area and nodded briefly. Her dark hair was pulled back in a smooth bun, and she was wearing a black suit-a very businesslike outfit, I thought at first, but then I looked down and saw that she was wearing her favorite strappy shoes, which also happened to be my favorite shoes on her, with her perfectly pedicured toenails painted a deep red. She looked more like she was dressed for a night of dancing. I had the irrational thought that she was going to leave the meeting and head straight to the nearest nightclub for happy hour.

I shook hands with her attorney, a middle-aged man with a crumpled shirt. When we walked into his dirty, disorganized office, I saw the divorce papers sitting on his desk, waiting for my signature. I broke down in front of the attorney, who smiled in a gentle but aloof way. He handed me a pen and said to sign on the dotted line, which would instantly put an end to my life with Jennifer. My ex was nothing if not efficient.

I looked at Jennifer through my tears and said, "Do you really, honestly want me to sign this?" When she said yes, I scratched my name wherever I was told to without even really reading the papers. Then I walked out.

We came back to the house after signing the papers, to have an opportunity to talk away from the attorneys, and for me to tie up loose ends. We talked-or really, Jennifer listened.

Finally, I sat at the kitchen counter and started bawling my eyes out. She was kind enough to listen because she had never seen me so sad. I wanted her to cry too, but she was in a completely different place emotionally. She had done her crying already. She expressed that for years she had dealt with the breakdown of our relationship, while I hadn't. She'd had a chance to start making her peace.

"How can we do this? After all the time we've been together?" I wailed. In a babbling way, I took full responsibility for all the problems in our marriage (and she didn't stop me, I might add). I said that our inability to communicate was all my fault, and so was our lack of intimacy. She casually sipped from a glass of water, looking right at me but not really answering. Because I knew her so well, I knew she was feeling the hurt, too. She just wasn't showing it.

* * *

The weeks after she left were the worst of my life. People say that divorce makes you feel as bad as when a person close to you dies. I agree, but I also have to think that in some cases it can actually be worse. When someone passes away, you don't necessarily feel rejected, and rejection can have the worst sting of all. It goes way beyond just a simple feeling of loss.

I didn't call anyone or see anyone. My friends and family had no idea what was going on with me. I felt like I was living a double life: During the day I would throw myself into work at the mortgage brokerage firm where I was a partner, but when I got home I'd limp into the living room and order Chinese food. And when it arrived, I'd end up weeping all over the kung pao chicken. Anything could make me burst into tears. The Faith Hill song "Cry," when she pleads with someone even to pretend that they're feeling sad, could send me into sobbing fits that I thought would split me in two.

I became pathetically nostalgic for the way things used to be-the times you don't realize are good until they're all over, like when I was a musician right after college. I had gotten into the music business the same way I had done so many things in my life-by basically dumbing my way into it. I had been booking acts for parties, and I came to realize that a lot of the bands were pretty bad. In fact, I thought I had more musical talent than some of the guys who were being paid to perform. I had inherited a love for making music from my paternal grandfather, Bob Guiney. We called him "Grumpa" because of his penchant for being a bit grumpy in a hilarious sort of way. He had done virtually everything-from playing pro football before there was even an NFL to entertaining us all with a great sense of humor and a great singing voice. He had been a popular crooner in the Detroit area in the 1930s and 40s, and had been a regular on local radio shows and at social clubs. My Aunt Becky is very musical, too, and has always been a big influence on me. She has fire-engine-red, curly hair and wears heart-shaped glasses. She has a beautiful singing voice and is always playing her guitar. In fact, Grandpa Guiney taught her how to play. I think it's in the genes, because my Aunt Becky's son Andy is also a very talented singer.

At any rate, I decided to join a band, which was called At Zero, and quickly took it over. I was in charge of the business side of things, but I also had a lot of creative input. I wrote all the song lyrics, as I couldn't play a note on any instrument. Writing songs became one of my favorite things to do.

At Zero soon became popular on the bar and frat-party circuit, and I would go touring with the band for weeks at a time. Soon we changed the name of the band to Fat Amy, after one of the band members' girlfriends, who was named Amy and who called everything "phat." Fat Amy became a regional success and my full-time occupation. I was actually able to get by for a good four years as a full-time musician.

Back then, Jennifer and I were not yet married, but we did share a home, and she never complained about my long absences. Her support showed that she wanted to help me achieve my dreams-and every man wants that in a relationship. She never once asked me to leave the band, even though there was very little money in it. I think it was a testament to our relationship that it stood up to that pressure, at least for a while.

Nonetheless, my constant traveling eventually took its toll. Our lives became increasingly more distant. By the time I decided to hang up the band and get a job that would allow me to make more money, we'd been involved for five years, and the cracks were starting to show. Maybe we had spent so much time apart that we didn't know how to be together. I had been the party boy with the band, the ringleader. I was always on, always ready to stir things up. (Picture the way I was on The Bachelorette, with the others in the Guys' House, running around, pouring shots for my buddies.) I think Jennifer had hoped that after all her patience, the energy I had spent on the band would be directed toward her and our relationship. But I immediately moved on to my next project-advertising sales (I was actually ranked #2 at one point at a Fortune 500 company) and then, later, starting up a branch of a mortgage brokerage firm. After a full day of work and maybe-albeit infrequently-a trip to the gym, all I wanted to do was sit in front of the television with a cold drink. I was so wiped out that I couldn't even have a decent conversation. I'd basically throw myself into a TV coma. Jennifer would soon give up and go into the bedroom or the lower level of our home. It was odd to realize, one night, that we were watching the same program on television but in different rooms.

Once, I came home to find Jennifer sitting on the living-room floor. A song called "Slow 44" that I had written was playing in the background, and she was crying. I knew at that point that we were in real trouble and that I needed to do something to hold on to her.

Copyright © Robert Guiney, published by Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., all rights reserved, reprinted with permission from the publisher.

About the Author

Bob Guiney, known as the funny guy from ABC's The Bachelorette, may not have won the Bachelorette's hand, but he won America's heart. With five appearances in one month on The Oprah Winfrey Show (a record for any guest in the history of the show), Bob will be the next Bachelor on ABC's hit series to air in October and November. He co-owns a branch of a mortgage company in Detroit, Michigan.