Athena's Divine Comedy

Similar to Dante’s The Divine Comedy, marriage moves through three realms but in the opposite direction to Dante’s journey. Let me explain.


The first realm - Paradiso.

For the newly married, it is paradise. This is the beginning of the relationship where your significant other can do no wrong and where their little “corks” are considered cute.

Ahhh paradise, where the butterflies seem to live in your stomach without break. Where you have an aching to see each other every minute of everyday and no longer have a need to have any life without your partner. Your single and fun friends disappear and you won’t notice. Where sharing food, holding hands, and making your new “couple” friends blush over your public displays of affection feel so natural. All is perfect and you have embarked on a new and exciting life together awaiting a perfect future. You think to yourself that if you love someone so much now, this love can only increase, right?

The second realm – Purgatorio.

This is when you have you been married a few years and the routines begin. Spaghetti night on Mondays, cards with the neighbours on Tuesdays, Wednesday is boys/girls night (purely, good clean fun consisting of other spouses of other couples you met together), Thursday is Grey’s Anatomy, Friday is help yourself to anything in the fridge dinner night, Saturday is housecleaning and errands, Sunday is visiting with family. These are things you start to do religiously, in fact the routine has become so routine you can’t think outside of the box you've created.

By this time, your single friends have all but disappeared. They do still send an occasional email or give you a quick call, but have a running joke that you're no longer allowed to go outside. You bump into them on occasion and they tell you about their super exciting weekend, people they met, traveling they’ve done and you politely smile. You tell your partner later that you ran into them and regurgitate their stories. Usually during this time your partner will laugh it off and talk about how “empty and shallow” their lives seem and you yourself may even agree.

Your significant others corks have become who they are and have lost the “cute” appeal they once had. No spontaneity is left in your relationship, except for the occasional birthday or anniversary and those "events" seem more like you're being put out then having a good time. There are NO surprises and nothing is left to the imagination. You think about it sometimes but swallow this fate as you can see no problem with it other then seeing no problem – your mind is locked inside it's own purgatory.

The third realm is especially tricky and in fact consists of 9 circles of hell – Inferno.


1_Limbo – You start to find your existence dull and unfulfilling yet you still haven’t found a way to fix it, so you sit and ponder. You start to email and call your old friends, plotting a way out of the house.
2_Lustful – It seems by this stage you will look for a new model where life will be again fun, spontaneous, and eventful. You look for anyone to fill this void. You start to envy everyone who is still allowed to have fun, and you want your friends back.
3_Gluttonous – You want more! You crave food, sex, or anything that will make you feel better and you want a lot of it. The more the better!
4_Hoarders and Spendthrifts – You start to plot, you want out, but you don’t want to give away everything you’ve worked for. So you start a little secret nestegg and become increasingly aware of every dime your partner is spending – this builds resentment.
5_Wrathful – Your resentment has turned to anger. Your partners corks now feels like nails down a chalkboard and the hair on the back of your neck stands on end when you see them. When they make a little snort when they laugh or tell the same story you’ve heard a hundred times before, you feel nauseous and you can feel your hate swelling in your stomach killing each butterfly slow and painfully. You become increasingly pissed off because you used to have friends and now you’re stuck with these married, spouse approved bores and you want your FUCKING FRIENDS BACK!
6_Heretics – You start to hate marriage, everything about marriage. You believe it to be a barbaric institution that your friends and family had convinced you was a logical step for human nature. You start to resent them for pushing you into this horrible life and wish you had never been born. You now start to see your old friends again and condemn marriage. You constantly talk of it horror and warn others against it. You are no longer yourself and your old friends can easily pick this up. Hatred spews from you and you can’t remember the last time you said something positive.
7_Violent – Your anger has been festering for so long that you can’t help but express it in physical ways. You may take your frustration out while weeding and tear up your entire yard in a fit of uncontrolable anger. You may come across a broken appliance and throw it out the window – there will be many ways you will lose it. You start to scream at the smallest of things. Those “corks” now cause a fight and you can’t help but express your hatred towards everything they do and say. You say all the nasty things that have been festering for years and now you want your partner to know that you hate them, in fact you’ll tell anyone who will listen that you hate them. You stop wanting to see your “couple” friends because you hate them too. Your old friends may not want to see you, because you're horrible to be around – your constant complaining and frustration is a downer and as one or two of them may try to comfort you, but they can’t help you.
8_Fraudulents – You now know your leaving and its time to start covering up all of the horrible things you’ve done up to this point. You deny any wrong doing and you convince yourself that it is entirely their fault, for everything! You twist everything, you lie and deny every horrible action, in fact you can’t even tell what the truth is anymore. The only thing you are completely sure of is you hate them!
9_The Bottom of the well (DIVORCE) – This is hell on earth, when the thoughts of killing them and spending the rest of your life behind bars seems favourable to living with them for another second. So what sits at the bottom of the well? LAWYERS! This is the accountability circle, when all of your actions from the previous eight circles get thrown back at you. When the lawyers dig, and pry and get rich off your misery.

The Grasshopper and the Parasite

Bloodsucker n.

1. An animal, such as a leech, that sucks blood;
2. An extortionist or a blackmailer;
3. A person who is intrusively or overly dependent upon another; a parasite.

Often men come into our lives that require a compassionate soul to lean on. This guy can be just out of a bad relationship or even still half in one. They often present themselves as the guy friend and even convince us they’re our best friend.

My young friend who I’ve named Grasshopper was recently in this type of relationship. She met a guy, we’ll call The Parasite. In the beginning when they met the Parasite had just gotten out of a bad relationship. He would talk to the Grasshopper for hours, complaining about his ex. He would tell her that she was so thoughtful and generous and really knew how to listen. He convinced her that she had become his best friend. So do they live happily ever after? NO!

At times the Parasite wanted to be not only best friends, but friends with benefits so to speak. This thrilled the young Grasshopper, finally a great guy, who was sensitive and caring and liked her as a person, enough to call her his best friend and who could really see what she had to offer as a person. (Spoiler Alert – men do this if they think you are losing interest in their problems or they need to feel like a man)

During the Parasites many rough patches, he started to spend time with his ex again and he no longer wanted the benefits he had once asked for, in fact never spoke of them again as if it had never happened. Although he and his ex had not gotten back together the Parasite would try to win her undying affections again, leaving the Grasshopper to pick up the pieces of his failed attempts. She was in fact his best friend right? She sat for hours listening to him complain about the other woman, never once complaining about where the mention “benefits” had gone and growing anger that this other woman was just playing all these games with him, completely unaware that he was playing them with her. Full of anger towards the ex and with the thoughts of one day he will be free from this “evil” woman she sat patient waiting for him to see her and realize that she was the better woman.

After some time passed and nothing changed between this ménage a trios; she in fact had a problem or two of her own in which she needed a friend. As she attempted to speak to him on issues that were solely her own, he changed the subject back to his broken heart and his countless issues. He was jobless, girlfriendless, and completely oblivious to the fact that most of his issues were his own fault.

Awhile more had past and the in-person meetings between the Grasshopper and the Parasite had come to a halt and the phone calls/texting/Facebooking/Online Chatting had slowed and it had become apparent to the Grasshopper that the Parasite had finally cured himself of his neediness or found a new host on which to feed. But being a good friend she tried repeatedly to contact him – they were best friends right? He would say he was going to phone later, say he would “try” to make time for her, “try” to see her soon but became increasingly unavailable. So unavailable in fact, he stopped responding all together. I guess the Grasshopper was no longer a use to the Parasite as he was full and finally happy.

I told her to start deleting and blocking him. She was reluctant at first thinking that her friend would come around, be back soon, and see the light. So we put it to the test. I said text him and see if he responds. Three pints low she did and never got a response. So she deleted him to see if he would even notice – HE DIDN’T!

Women often find strays, some woman’s garbage that will find you, a caring soul full of life and love, and use you until they get her back or someone else without any problems of their own that can cater to their every whim. They never take their “friends” seriously as mates or see them other then bodies on which to feed. Once you present yourself as a listener requiring nothing for yourself, you become food for their manhood. They will drain you and not look back at the carnage created by their feasting.

So why do we fall for it? We want a man who is sensitive and caring. We see these men as willing to sacrifice their souls for the one they love and we want a piece. We want a man to feel that way about us, a man who can’t exist devoid of us, who is torn into a million pieces without us. Unfortunately it isn’t us and it will never be us, at least with him. This is a true predator, a wolf in loves clothing.

But don’t feel too bad for the young Grasshopper, she may be sad and torn but she still has enough energy to leave one final thought:

Dear Parasite,
I hate you. You are a loser. You have ripped my heart out and I hope you’ve had fun doing it.
Your most recent ex-best friend,
Better off without you
Grasshopper