He says you may feel free to call him Ex-A if you like.

Facts: I’m a 32 years old proud mother of two daughters, 9 and 13 years old. I’m the ex-wife of two different men, one father each to each of my girls. My current husband and I have been married since October of ’06. If I wrote that correctly, you’ll now get that I’ve had two divorces and three “I do’s.”

Opinions mixed with facts: I live in Arizona because I feel it’s the best choice right now. My daughters’ fathers’ live in Arizona. So I live in Arizona. And my husband lives in Arizona because I live in Arizona. But he doesn’t really want to live here either. If I hadn’t had children with two different men while in Arizona things would be different. But I did and this is how it is.

Do you wonder why the hell I went to Arizona to begin with? As important as that is, more relevant questions pop up. Do I really need to stay in Arizona? If I wasn’t in Arizona, where would I be?

To the first question, no, I don’t really need to stay in Arizona. But the alternative seems to suck more then this reality. Which brings me to The Ex’s. Again a huge topic for another time, but I must hit on the hot spots.

Ex-husband number one (EX1 from now on), was not from Arizona. Most of his life pre-meeting me was spent in either Montana or Alaska. He, like me, came to Arizona to go to graphic design school. We lived together, dating for most of the time we were enrolled. Expecting to break up as friends after graduation, we instead were just expecting. Put plainer – pregnant.

EX1 and I would have been friends keeping in touch on myspace or facebook or whatever and instead we had our daughter and tried out marriage to get my dad off our backs. Oh, and to be a good example to my four younger siblings. We got married in California where my family was and where we stayed for the birth. Oddly enough, marriage didn’t make things better with my dad, so we had to move.

In November of 1995 we had a choice of Montana, Alaska or Arizona. Remember, it’s NOVEMBER. Moving in with EX1’s Arizona friends and their kids into a two bedroom apartment seemed like a “good for now” idea. We really were surprised when it didn’t go well. Imagine my shock that the same issues we had while dating became a force multiplied for the worse after I became Mrs. EX1.

All these years later, the relationship that we have boils down to friends that have a daughter together. We’re both still in Arizona. He’s thought about moving out of state a few times. We’ve disagreed on parenting stuff, but no more then we’d have disagreed had we still been married. Who knows what the future holds, but he’s more likely to move out of Arizona before I do. Like always, we’d work it out.

The situation with EX2 is a whole other kind of country western song. My second husband met me at an all time low, even for me. My family and I weren’t speaking. I was a roommate to someone I loved who was loudly loving on someone else across the hall. The last black eye I got from my father had just faded and I was missing my daughter who was getting to know her father after his six month stay in Alaska. My mental mantra at the time was something like, “Why can’t I just be normal?”

In walks Mr. Normal. EX2 showed up in one of those brief moments when I was sort of single. Before I learned the definition of quixotic, I imagined a power brought us to the same place at the same time, December 31, 1997. About half an hour of talking that night, followed by a 14 hour get-together on the first day of the year and I thought I’d found a great new friend.

When my roommate became a possessive dickhead about me having friends outside the circle of pre-approved friends, I was presented with two choices. After knowing me for about six weeks or so, EX2 invited me to move in with him. He also thought seriously about my daughter and decided that he was committed to being step-fatherly toward her. We really were so young and well-meaning.

In the first eight months that we knew each other, EX2 and I went on at least three trips. There was always something planned or happening. I believe part of it was his natural inclination to plan trips and part of it was to get away from his mother. She and I did not get along and I didn’t stand up to her. That he didn’t stand up to her on my behalf wasn’t cool either. But then she went away to Florida and I got pregnant.

My recollection of when she left and came back is hazy, but I know that had she not gone to Florida for the time she did, I may not have married my second husband at all. As it is, me pregnant is a scary proposition. An emotionally unbalanced wreck, when I’m not vomiting or sobbing, I’m laughing uncontrollably. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be around me since being me during those nine months is almost unbearable.

After having my first daughter, I made a proclamation that I would never do that again. When I realized I was pregnant again, I was terrified. Ask anyone, I’m pro-choice, but there was no way I could not have my child. I looked at EX2 and realized that even if we weren’t together he was a good man, a normal man and he’d be a good father.

EX2 and I had talks about the choice to have the baby, but we didn’t really talk about getting married. The surprise, the hormones, the missing mother-in-law and I’ll be honest, my love for him all combined to me saying yes. Exactly one year after meeting him, I married my second husband on December 31, 1998. Our daughter was born in May the following year.

Again, since it’s not the point of this post, I’ll save it for the book. My second marriage boils down to the reality that I cheated on my husband with the dickhead roommate from before. Hell, my first marriage wasn’t really over until I cheated on my husband with my carpool buddy and the divorce papers weren’t finished until after the conception of daughter two.

I’m not going to split hairs about how I may have said I wanted a divorce before or after actually sleeping with someone not my spouse. Facts are facts. I broke my word, big.

What was this post about? Ah yes. Do I really need to stay in Arizona? I know I said no earlier, but the real answer is yes because my second husband is a native Arizonian and he’s married to a native Arizonian. They’re not leaving Arizona. Since I believe it is important for my children to spend equal time with all of their parents and siblings, we’re staying too. We’re staying even if my husband gets better job offers elsewhere.

In nine years my youngest will be going to college. Nine years isn’t really that long. Wait, I need to check my math… yep, nine years. She should be class of 2017. That would make me 41 years old. It’s doable. Besides, I love our home. If we do move away a decade from now, we’d still have our Arizona home. Snowbirds baby!

Where would I live if I wasn’t here? Well, my husband is from Virginia. Virginia seems nice. Green like New Jersey but with nice people. But then I could also see living in a few parts of New Jersey or upstate New York. Ever since I was eight years old I had wanted to live in Manhattan, but I can’t go there now.

The young me was often blind to all the options that were really out there. So many times I thought I had choice A and choice B and I did the best I could with either one. Am I still doing that today? Of course. That could be one of many reasons I’m angry. It’s possible I use self-limitations as a way to punish myself. It’s something to think about. For now, I’ll conclude that living in the state of Arizona is not what I’m most angry about. My relationship with my second ex-husband will be revisited though.