The Cell Phone
A wedding, a divorce, forgiveness, and how I found more than I’d hoped
I’ve played a weekly DND campaign with some friends since 2020. In December of 2024, the Dungeon Master and one of the players announced their wedding date during a session. My first reaction was elated joy and congratulations (I love weddings). Later that night, as alcohol fled my brain and I stared at my darkened ceiling waiting for sleep, my smile faded and the blood drained from my face as the room shifted under me.
My ex-wife, long-time friend of the bride, would be attending the wedding of this couple I’d only known for a few years.
Let’s back up. This group started in 2020 (what a surprise) when I realized one of my then-wife’s friends was a dungeon master. I asked if he’d be interested, and within a couple weeks we were all playing online together. It was amazing. Not just a cure for COVID’s social isolation, but for life’s social isolation.
In the background, the usual COVID chorus sang. I was working and drinking too much, she had been laid off from the YMCA and spent most of her time gaming on her computer or hitting the gym. We’d been married the year prior in October, and things felt off. But everything felt off during COVID, right?
Fast forward to June. We had a long conversation one night. I don’t remember what it was about, but I remember that I told her, “Relationships fail when both sides stop trying, and I’m still trying.”
The next morning, she told me she wanted a divorce. “I thought about what you said last night, and I don’t want to try anymore.”
My initial reaction wasn’t anger or sadness, it was concern. Depression ran rampant during COVID, and she didn’t even have her work as an outlet. I may not have liked the people I worked with, but maybe they’d kept me sane. Maybe she needed community more than I did.
I spoke to everyone I knew, trying to think of what to do to help her. For days, I sat with her, trying to talk it out. Not our marriage, but whatever she was dealing with. Eventually she broke down, admitting that she’d cheated on me and that was the reason.
Apparently, she’d thought the lie would save me pain.
I wept harder than I ever had. My anger, usually ready to boil over, was silent. To this day, I still can’t parse the emotions that went through me. I just remember deep hurt. I asked why she hadn’t apologized, and she answered, “Because I’m not sorry.”
I’m no stranger to the infinite justification loop that humans are capable of. I use it all the time with other people, understanding that “everyone has their reasons”. Even I’m baffled by how easily I can find reasons to forgive. Thank goodness for my friend, Jay, who asked the only question that mattered.
“Would you have done this to her?”
The answer came without a thought, “Never.” I wouldn’t even hook up with someone who had a significant other, let alone cheat on my own.
I ended it that day. Granted her request (demand?) for divorce. I still remember the look of shock when I asked for the engagement ring back – the perfect juxtaposition to the dull paperwork that I had to complete myself.
Fast forward five years to the wedding. I thought I was “over” it. The truth had become undeniable, and I had to wonder what it would take to accept it.
I spent an entire year preparing to see her for the first time since that goodbye. My main goal was to be a positive participant in the wedding and celebrate the love of two close friends. But the more I considered it, the more one question kept coming up.
I asked everyone in my circle: “What is forgiveness?”
Answer after answer felt insufficient. Most hovered around “letting it go,” as if pain could slip through fingers like sand. In my experience it’s more like sandpaper underwear. You find a comfortable position; forget you’re wearing them. Then, one day you shift to scratch yourself and end up with road rash.
I’d never indulged in schadenfreude. There’s no salvation in holding anger. That choice had felt like letting go until the midnight realization left my soul’s ass red as a raspberry.
The time came for the wedding. I’d hoped to greet her as a human being, maybe catch up a bit and let her know there was no hard feelings. Surely, that would be the way to end this for both of us.
That wasn’t what happened.
She greeted me, I returned her greeting with a hug and asked how she was. She crumbled into the bride’s shoulder. The woman of the hour led my ex away like she had a gut wound.
I felt like an ass. I spent most of the wedding hiding among a small group of people I’d met at the bachelor party the previous night and avoiding alcohol (it would just make me more dysregulated. This was all the more unfortunate because the reception was hosted at a good brewery).
A voice in my mind wanted to judge me for this, to call me a coward. I’ll admit, part of me wished I were someone who could see that I hadn’t done anything wrong in the moment. I’d consider it a blessing for even a single voice among the chorus in my head to suggest I throw my hands up on the dance floor whether she was there or not. Maybe I’ll get there one day, but that’s another story.
Until then, I was only human, but humanity has its own rewards.
For example, I was invited to this wedding. There were less than fifty people in attendance. My ex was the maid of honor, and still, they’d invited me.
I flashed back to after her confession. She hadn’t told anyone except her sister at the time she’d left. Not her mom or dad, no other family, not a single friend. I found this concerning, but after days of trying to help her through a depression that didn’t exist, I stood up for myself. I told her she needed to tell the DND group what had happened.
The following days were painful as I waited for the inevitable message, “It was fun while it lasted.”
I was surprised again.
The player who would become the bride called me and asked if I’d like to keep playing without my ex. The Dungeon Master was willing to take her character out of the game however I liked. He’d said, “We can’t lose Will.”
“We can’t lose Will.”
I’m tearing up just thinking about it. I needed to hear it in that moment. Not just to be welcomed and supported, but to be wanted. It’s rare to be told so clearly.
I wasn’t just invited to the wedding. I was invited to the bachelor’s party as well. I got to meet people besides the bride and groom. I still remember one guy, a stranger less than twenty-four hours before the wedding.
He saw me with my eyes boring into the table during the maid of honor speech. I was struggling, but mostly I just wanted to stay out of my ex’s eyesight. If she stumbled or teared up in the wrong way because of me, that’d just make things worse. He touched my hand and asked if I was doing okay. I barely knew the guy. It really spoke to the character of the bride and groom that they had people like that around them.
The night was hard. I spent a lot of time outside catching air and self-regulating, masking up with a wedding smile, going to the bathroom and splashing water on my face. It was the first wedding I’d attended where I didn’t dance.
I remembered my main goal – be part of the celebration. It wasn’t “perfection” (whatever that even meant) or to become someone who lies about how they feel. I just needed to be honest and give myself some grace.
When my ex-wife left with her new husband, a weight lifted from my shoulders, but only for a moment. Her sister ran up to the bride and told her their parents were walking by and she should say hi.
Now, my ex-in-laws were standing right at the entrance. They chatted and chatted. I knew they wouldn’t want to talk to me. If my ex was still harboring this much emotion about it, they would be too. And who knows what story she’d told them? I was probably a monster in their book.
I decided it was time to go. I’d done well, and people were filtering out anyway. It’d be ok to call it a night. That’s what I told my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I grabbed some paper towels and noticed a phone left on a shelf. I picked it up to bring it to the bartender.
The screen was locked, but I was able to pull a credit card from the back compartment of the phone case. My heart stopped. Of course. It was my ex-mother-in-law’s.
Fuck.
I was already walking out the bathroom, too late to turn back. I took a deep breath, walked to their circle and leaned into it in the most awkward way I could imagine, my body choosing to contort to match the wreckage inside me. I handed off the phone and turned to leave.
“I know you!” she protested. “Come here!”
She pulled me into a hug.
For the next hour I caught up with people I used to know. Even her sister and the man who would have been my brother-in-law joined in. They asked about my life, I asked about theirs.
“Has Byron actually retired yet?” I hooked a thumb a my ex’s dad.
Everyone laughed.
“Not yet. They keep offering him more money, and he keeps taking it.”
When I said goodbye, her mom pulled me into a long hug. She whispered that she was sorry for what her daughter did, and that she was sad we couldn’t have a relationship. I told her, “It would have been nice to be part of your family.”
I walked through the still bustling downtown St. Pete with a smile. I grabbed a couple slices of pizza now that my stomach wasn’t in knots. Reflecting on the moment during the walk home, the world shifted under me again.
I felt a chapter page turn as I realized I hadn’t been wrong to hug my ex. Sure, I hadn’t gotten what I’d aimed for – hell, we didn’t even make it past reintroductions; but I’d tried. And there was nothing wrong or mean-spirited in the way I’d done it.
While I may not have gotten any closure with my ex, it turned out that wasn’t what I’d needed.
I’d never spoken to my ex-in-laws after the divorce. They hadn’t even known about her cheating at the time she left, and I wasn’t going to spill her tea. Seeing them again, being told that they’d liked me too, that they’d wanted me… it was so much more than idle catch up with someone who’d hurt me.
I walked away from that wedding leaving a little baggage behind with the cell phone.
From the Rift,
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