Weddingbee Blog

Most of you probably don’t recognize my name around these parts, but as a refresher, I’m the bee who got divorced. Don’t worry, the story has a happy ending, I promise! As you might recall, I met the boy of my dreams and we’ve been happily living together in our apartment with our five pets for over a year.

Recently we had quite the tragedy with our dog Betty White. To catch you guys up to speed, I adopted Betty White from the SPCA about four years ago. She has always had major separation anxiety, which causes her to bark non-stop when no one is home. We were going through dog training for months and considered giving her up for adoption to our dog trainer. We thought he could give her a better life since she would be able to spend her days with him at work and learn how to be a more confident pooch overall. This backfired when he called several days later to say that she escaped from his training center during a huge snowstorm.

The following evening she was found and we took it as a sign that we were meant to be her doggie parents forever. Her non-stop barking is obviously a nuisance to our neighbors, plus we feel bad that she is so stressed when we are not home, even if only for a few hours. We’ve tried everything under the sun to help her separation anxiety (doggie daycare, “humane” anti-bark collars, pet sitters, separation anxiety specialists, pooch Prozac, anti-stress plug-ins and calming treats, etc.), but there is no light at the end of the very loud, bark-filled tunnel. So, if we can’t stop her barking, we are going to have to move to a new place where our neighbors aren’t as disrupted. I wouldn’t have even known about Betty White barking during the day if our neighbor hadn’t written a letter. My neighbors at the past few apartments I’ve had never said anything since they were rarely home to hear her bark, I suppose.

Our apartment’s lease ends in July and after much discussion, we feel that it’s time to move onto the next step in our relationship. No, not marriage, but house hunting! I know, I know. Most gals would never buy a house with someone without being married first, but I guess I am untraditional. I have complete confidence in our dedication to one another and the fact that we want to grow old and wrinkly (ew) together. I believe this will be wonderful for both our relationship and our four-legged family. There’s no doubt in my mind that we’ll have an intimate wedding eventually, but going through a divorce made me shift my priorities around quite a bit. Putting a ton of money into rent every month seems silly when we could be spending less than that for a mortgage and working toward actually owning property together. Plus, Betty White can bark her little head off if I go outside and shovel for five minutes and I don’t have to stress about being evicted. After all, it’s pretty darn difficult to find a landlord who is comfortable with allowing 5 pets, let alone a dog that yaps her head off.

I can honestly say that after getting married, I never pictured myself buying a house with my ex-husband. I had this feeling in my gut that we wouldn’t have that happily-ever-after ending. I also never saw myself having children with him once our relationship began falling apart. I knew I didn’t want children growing up in that sort of environment since Betty White was already showing signs of being scared of him. In the end, I didn’t trust him to be there for me because he couldn’t even be there for himself. Unfortunately, I had this eye-opening experience after we said “I do,” but I don’t regret anything because I have learned heaps about myself. I think it took all of this happening to finally admit that I deserved better. Most of all, I have learned to trust my gut and listen to it, rather than push it aside.

I figured I would be a crazy dog lady and live alone forever in a house full of pets (not to the animal hoarding extent, but still). I was really shocked when I hit it off so well with Pete since I was geared up for a lifetime of eating Kid Cuisines alone (mmm, corn and brownie!). I am so incredibly happy now. In the words of Cher Horowitz from Clueless, “I am totally butt crazy in love with him” and I have never been so excited to start a future together and begin the house hunting process. I hope that you guys won’t mind as I update you along the way, even if I don’t have much to write about in the way of marriage. That being said, what are some topics that you’d like to see me babble about in the future? I don’t mind being open about any topic relating to marriage, divorce or being in a long-term relationship, post-divorce. Feel free to comment with questions and I’ll tackle them in future posts!

Have any other readers decided to put purchasing a home together before marriage? Oh, and did anyone else start to crave Kid Cuisine chicken nuggets after reading my ramblings?