The Starter Husband
By Gretchen Voss
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I hoist my drink in that you-go-girl kind of way, but I’m struck by her casual disregard for the institution. Marriage used to be a big deal. How could she slip in and out of it so easily? She’d plodded along for nearly 12 months, passive-aggressively avoiding her relationship by consuming herself with the restaurant openings and black-tie benefits that were part of her job. But then Tucker started talking about having children. “To me, once you have kids, you can’t get out,” she says. “When he began asking about a family, I felt like that was too final of a commitment. That’s when I had to say, ‘OK, I’ve got to fish or cut bait here.’”
Her own parents split up when she was 3, and she didn’t want to condemn another generation to that hell. Andi and Tucker got divorced almost a year to the day after they had vowed to be together forever.
“Oh, my God, it was so easy,” she says, exhaling loudly. “I realized, I can get out of this, and he can get out of this, and we can get on with our lives.” They sold the condo and split the profits, and that was that. She felt bad about hurting his feelings, but she never doubted her decision. I raise an eyebrow. “Never,” she repeats.
