How Not to Get Divorced: Part 1

Getting divorced is probably one of the most stressful events one can encounter. I will preface this by saying that child custody is far more stressful than divorce, and hopefully, you won't have to experience either. If you do, however, happen to venture upon such a life event, I hope it can be done with grace and dignity.

There can be a lot of unfinished business for people who are going their separate ways and many people need to try to talk it out in order to gain some closure. However, regardless of how many times some couples talk it out, one person feels as though there is more to be said.

One fateful morning, at 4:45 am, my phone gave the familiar ping of the "'Find my iPhone" feature. Groggily, as I rolled over to turn it off, I promptly fell back asleep. Three minutes later, the same event happened and continued to happen through 7:30 am. The second time? I was annoyed. The third through fifth time? "What the actual fuck?!?" When I realized it was my ex trying to get my attention. I sent a curt text, "Stop pinging me. What do you want?" The response, "What are you talking about? I'm not doing anything."

I may not be an expert in how my phone works all of the time, but I do know that I keep my phone on silent at all times. The only person with whom I shared my location was my ex. Why? We're married. It's for emergencies. What happens when I don't answer my phone in a timely fashion? He pings my phone to alert me.

So, the morning after a rehearsal night--meaning I got home about 9:45 pm, made sure my kids' lunches were made for the next day, did some grading, and probably went to be around midnight, my phone started pinging me at way-too-early-in-the-morning. I'm not a morning person, but I think most people would be rather annoyed by a ping before their alarms go off in the morning.

Also, given the denial of any pinging added to my frustration and annoyance that morning.

There are different ways to get your almost ex-partner's attention. This is not one of them:

Above are some of the notifications I received on a lovely Thursday morning. So, if you share your location with your partner, in my case, an iPhone, pinging your partner's phone repeatedly doesn't necessarily increase the other partner's willingness to hear you out.

I included the screenshots because a story that sounds too annoying to have actually happened needs to have proof. So, in each of my little vignettes, I have proof to back up my "How Not To..." series.

Pro tip: Even if your phone is on silent, it will still loudly ping you should someone try to contact you.

The moral of this first episode is thus: Don't ping someone. Especially, early in the morning, in a non-emergency situation. It's inconsiderate. It doesn't help communication between people. It's controlling and unhealthy. However, in retrospect, the story of the "Find my iPhone" pinging is funny. It is. It's over-the-top.

I hope you get an OMG-kind of giggle from each of the stories because they make me giggle at this point. It makes for a good story and I'm probably not alone in the ridiculousness of the situation. It did cause me to turn off my phone during the school day because I didn't want it to ping during work, so there are little silver linings to everything.

Until the next story, I hope you are well and have a decent cup of coffee to sip on.