The moral of the story couldn’t be clearer: you already know if your partner is fucking around behind your back, you just need to decide if you’re done being a doormat. You need to wake up one morning and decide that those rose-colored glasses are so last fucking season.
Always remember that you are a beautiful, strong woman or gay, and that plenty of wonderful men (and, perhaps, women) want to bend you over a kitchen table . . . or couch. I’m an equal-opportunity furniture molester.
Once you’ve decided to regain control of your life, the next step is to catch him in the act. Or, hypothetically, tape a phone conversation between the two of you in which he admits to fucking you on the staircase of your formerly shared home just a few days earlier, despite already living with his mistress; in which he admits that she is unattractive, that he doesn’t actually love her and would never marry her; and then asks you to come meet him at the McDonald’s he is at with the kids, because he wants you to take him back. After it’s all recorded, send her ass the tape . . . hypothetically.
If at all possible, don’t get married in California. That “no-fault state” business can be a real shit show, because despite the insane levels of douchebaggery, your alimony check won’t go up, and all you have to lose is the only thing you have left: your dignity.
If you still have questions about your partner’s fidelity, here are my top five signs that he is cheating:
1. He has two cell phones and no job.
2. He showers before going to the gym.
3. Your partner all of sudden requires a lot more “me” time. Especially if your partner is Eddie Cibrian—that man had more “me” time than most single guys.
4. Local business meetings never require an overnight stay. Never.
5. His credit card bills and cell phone bills go to his parents’ house.
If you are able to check off any of these, it’s time to reevaluate your relationship. If you can check off three or more, you’re fucked. Number five may not actually be a barometer of his cheating, but it’s douchey either way—especially at thirty-five.
And while this is by no means a definitive list, I’d like to think it’s a pretty good temperature read. But it’s not brain science or rocket surgery. If the ground is wet and the sky is gray, it’s probably raining (or you woke up in a VIP room full of strippers at the Spearmint Rhino in Vegas).
brandi’s babble
Before you judge the girl with the broken ankle, walk a mile in her stiletto.
CHAPTER TWO
It’s a Breakup, Not Cancer
The most surprising thing about breaking up is that you already know how to do it. Everything you need to know, you learned in kindergarten.
Yours should always be better than his (especially when it comes to lawyers).
Sharing sucks.
A nice glass of grape juice can cure just about anything.
Always wait to be called on before speaking (in both mediations and the courtroom).
And finally, always remember that the other person started it.
For obvious reasons, a breakup is much easier if you’re (a) not married and (b) don’t have kids. But the division of assets (and friends!) is always challenging.
If you are married and making the command decision to get a divorce, the first thing you do is lawyer up. It’s probably the hardest move to make, because you’re actually admitting to yourself that you’re getting divorced. No more what-if scenarios or “maybe I’ll wake up from this nightmare” pipe dreams. It’s about to happen, and it’s harder and longer than childbirth—without an epidural. Eddie handled everything in our relationship, so I had no idea where to start. Computers were (and still sort of are) foreign objects to me, and I was just starting to learn how to use one, but the concept of “googling” divorce attorneys was not an option. Instead, I went with word of mouth. I got a laundry list of suggestions of amazing lawyers with stellar reputations, but when it finally came to making the calls, I had a rude awakening. I was told—one after the other—that representing me would be a conflict of interest. How could it be that every good lawyer in Los Angeles was representing my husband? It took me a bit to learn this valuable divorce lesson (so listen close): whichever party contacts a lawyer first, that attorney, by law, cannot represent the other party. I quickly figured out that my soon-to-be ex-husband—most likely at the suggestion of his fancy lawyer—had had the foresight to call every decent lawyer in the area for a meeting before I did. It was his way of legally crippling me. Not only was this going to be ugly, but I was also going to get fucked—and not in the good way.
One of my best girlfriends had just gone through a divorce and suggested her lawyer. Nothing fancy, but she was apparently totally fair and kept her legal fees to a minimum. Ironically, this is the same best friend who now vacations with LeAnn and Eddie. #JustSayin. I met with this lawyer and hired her on the spot. She was a bit of a ballbuster, and I figured that would come in handy if Eddie decided to play hardball. She also told me I wouldn’t have to fork over a dime up front, because her entire fee would come out of the settlement. I felt good about my decision. I was being rational, reasonable, and not working from a place of emotions. And, let’s be honest, I didn’t have two nickels to rub together.
My ex-husband, on the other hand, went out and hired the most high-profile celebrity-divorce attorney in Los Angeles, Neal Hersh—with Eddie not realizing that he wasn’t actually a high-profile celebrity himself . . . and neither was his girlfriend, for that matter. He went out and hired a total bulldog to nail my ass to a wall. I never stood a chance.
In spite of everything, that’s the one thing I never understood. After thirteen years and two children, this man was intent on ruining me. And why? Because I discovered that he fucked half of Hollywood? Because I wasn’t going to be a doormat anymore and finally stood up for myself in the media? How is that my fault? But that was just another piece in this painful puzzle. I had no idea who he was anymore, and I was beginning to realize I never did.
Like I said, Eddie handled everything having to do with bills, loans, insurance, etc. I handled the kids. I think up until that point, Eddie had never spent one night alone with the boys. But raising his children, I discovered, offered me zero insurance when it came to divorce. In all of our years of marriage, I did not have my name on a single document—not for any of the homes we purchased, not one of the cars or motorcycles. Every credit card, every power bill, every medical statement was in my husband’s name. Even the vintage Bronco my father had given us to refurbish was in Eddie’s name. In thirteen years, I had built precisely zero credit. I had zero savings. And now, I was about to become a single mom.
Someone told me that I should wait for him to file first, so that he would incur the cost. That was the stupidest advice ever. When it comes to divorce, the $2,000 charge that the city charges you to process the divorce isn’t even a blip on the radar. After nearly two years of back-and-forth, Eddie’s and my divorce cost north of $250,000. I know that doesn’t seem like a costly divorce to certain people in LA, but to us, it was beyond substantial. We had been living beyond our means for years—and despite the occasional hints from his mother (“Brandi, you guys are spending too much money,” she would say), I was pretty much in the dark about it. I figured she wanted us to be frugal since the downturn in the economy, but Eddie never stopped buying expensive toys or planning luxurious vacations. Toward the end of our marriage, he even paid cash for a new Harley-Davidson. I went with him to the bank and saw him pull out the wad of cash. So I didn’t worry too much about it. That wasn’t my job in the relationship. I had a hot dinner served on time every night, and I looked great on his arm. That was my role.
Not until we started the divorce did I realize how truly broke we were. Yet another opportunity for Eddie to smack me in the face with something I was so unprepared for.
I grew up in a modest home with a modest household income. My father was the local pot dealer, and my mom was a hippie who rarely wore a
bra. I was the middle child between my older sister, Tricia, and my younger brother, Michael (both of whom still live in Northern California). My mother breast-fed us far too long, and my father worked three jobs, besides the pot dealing, so we rarely saw him. I know it sounds awful—“my father, the drug dealer”—but it truly was a means to an end. He sold pot because it was an extra income that could help to send all three of us to a private Lutheran school outside our neighborhood. We lived in a terrible neighborhood, and the public schools around us were dangerous.
Sure, I became used to the fancy house and the nice things, but I was never afraid of living a modest life again, if we needed to. I would have scaled back enormously, had I known how much we were hurting, and tried to pitch in any way I could. It was a marriage, a partnership. We lived in Los Angeles, surrounded by some of the wealthiest people in the world, but Eddie and I were never truly rich. We were ghetto rich—we had the nice cars, the nice house, and the nice jewels, but we probably had a second and a third mortgage. We were living paycheck to paycheck, with little savings.
You can imagine the insane frustration I felt when it cost me a quarter of a million dollars just to divorce a man who was parking his Harley in every available spot in town. In hindsight, I wish I’d had the emotional satisfaction of filing first, so I wouldn’t ever have to hear again that it was Eddie who left me. In actuality, I ended things. He would have come back if I let him, but that wasn’t an option. I would never be able to look at him the same way again.
The divorce would probably have cost us less than 50 percent of what it did if we had chosen a mediator, but what did Eddie care? He had a sugar mama now. He was angry, and he always had to win.
After the news came out that Eddie and LeAnn were having an affair, gossip reporters bombarded me hoping to score some outrageous quotes (and, boy, did they eventually get some juicy one-liners from me). I have no idea how they figured out my cell phone number, but the calls were coming morning, noon, and night. And they weren’t harassing just me, they were going after my friends and family, too. During the early stages of the media chaos, I kept quiet, because Eddie and I were trying to make things work. We signed up for couples therapy before news of his second affair, with the cocktail waitress, made headlines. (Word to the wise: if you need to see a couples therapist, your marriage is probably already over.) He even bought me a stripper pole for our anniversary. (Looking back, I see that was probably a pretty big red flag.) I didn’t realize that the entire time we were in therapy and trying to save our marriage, he was still seeing LeAnn.
Once photos surfaced of Eddie and LeAnn on motorcycles in Malibu, I just lost my shit. The same afternoon those pictures were taken, the In Touch magazine photos of Eddie and Sheena the cocktail waitress (also known by me as his Tuesday-night slut) were circulating online and brought to my attention. In his defense, he did tell me that he was playing poker every Tuesday night. Silly me, I thought he was playing a card game. I didn’t realize that he was actually playing “poke her.” I guess it’s my fault for not asking him to spell it?
When I saw the Sheena photos, I immediately packed a bag and announced to Eddie that I was moving into the Beverly Hills Hotel. He begged me not to go, but I was determined to make my point and have him watch me walk away. Apparently, as soon as I hit the door, he was off to see LeAnn. I thought I was going to teach him a lesson; instead I learned that I just sent him right into her arms. But I guess he was headed that way, anyway.
No one ever tells you about the nitty-gritty of divorce. For instance, I never imagined my husband and me walking through our shared home of three years with yellow legal pads, picking apart what each of us would be keeping. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life: each of us flanked by our lawyers, we went from room to room, slowly and meticulously deconstructing the life we had spent years building together. While we agreed on many items, Eddie was going to fight me for some of the big-ticket items, including the twelve-person Tiffany dinnerware set we received as a wedding gift from my parents. Like, for real, dude? You want to split our china? He did. And he got half. So if anyone is interested, I can do a posh dinner party for six on Tiffany china. I lost the crystal glassware, though, so it’s BYOC (bring your own cup) at my next dinner party . . . for six.
During further negotiations, I sat across the table from him in one of those big, cold conference rooms. It was so surreal to me, because I was able to see a side of him that I never recognized before. He was a coward. In retrospect, I’m surprised he even had the fucking balls to show up. He’s hidden behind lies and half-truths his entire life, so anytime he’s faced with brutal honesty, he runs. It’s just his nature. And part of me was all too happy to insult him in front of his fancy-pants lawyer.
We fought over the motorcycles, the condo, the boat, and the electronics . . . everything. I even brought in a forensic accountant to dissect his credit-card bills to dig up what he purchased for his mistress with our joint funds. It cost me $12,000 to find out that he bought his Tuesday-night girlfriend some diamond earrings and paid the rent for her Hollywood apartment. The irony? I didn’t even get any money for it, and I still had to pay the bill. But I was angry and hurt, so I was up for the fight. It became the ultimate pissing match. I spent double what I ended up getting as the settlement, just because I wanted to fight with him, and I didn’t want him to win.
Eddie even fought me for the Bronco my father had given us to refurbish. That’s where I nearly lost it. I was planning to give it back to my father. When I told my dad that Eddie was fighting me for it, he called Eddie to tell him that it was a gift meant for me. Eddie might be a total loser, but he just loves to win.
Determining ownership of the Bronco was one of the final sticking points in our divorce. During one of our last meetings, the lawyers suggested that we each write down on a piece of paper how much we were willing to spend to buy the Bronco off the other person. The person with the highest number would pay that to the other party out of the settlement. We both agreed.
I knew Eddie wanted to win and that he would pay a premium to get the car. I would have loved to get it, but I couldn’t afford to lose that money out of our settlement. I had no income and decided that I needed to let it go, but Eddie didn’t have to know that. So, I decided to try to milk some money out of the bastard. With my pen, I pretended to write a large, long figure on my piece of paper. I noticed Eddie doing the same. We both pushed our papers to the middle of the table, and our lawyers flipped them around. Eddie was willing to pay $65,000. I was willing to pay $1. Eddie pretended that he didn’t care that I just screwed him out of $65,000, but I knew it royally pissed him off. What could be sweeter? I got paid a whole lot of money to irritate my ex-husband.
But in the same vein, did I want half of his fancy tools? You bet your ass. Did I try to snake half of his watch collection? Obviously. But Eddie was smart—smarter than he looks, anyway. I remember watching him carry the watch case filled with his extravagant watch collection (including three Rolexes, three Panerais, two Franck Mullers, and a Cartier that I had given him, totaling well over $100,000) out of the house the very day news of his affair had come out, along with many of the expensive electronics. This was the love of my life and our marriage was over, so naturally that sent me into a tailspin. It was clear to me then that this was going to get ugly.
Luckily, I was able to keep my wedding rings: a three-carat, prong-set wedding band and my four-and-a-quarter-carat, princess-cut, center-stone engagement ring. Today it’s probably worth upward of $70,000 and could probably have saved me a lot of financial hardship in the beginning had I decided to sell it, but I just couldn’t. Instead, I locked the ring away in a safe-deposit box, so that one day my Mason or Jake can have it. People often ask me if I think it would be bad luck for my son and future daughter-in-law to use a ring that was the symbol of my failed marriage. My answer? Fuck off. How could a thirteen-year relationship that brought into this world two of its most beautiful people be considered a
failure or bad luck? I don’t regret being Eddie’s wife, and I don’t regret the life we built together. I just regret encouraging him to do that made-for-TV movie.
After the division of the assets came the really fun part, the child- and spousal-support negotiations. This, the lengthiest part of the divorce, lasted over a year. We couldn’t agree on anything, and our lawyers seemed to encourage the fighting (which translated into more billable hours for them). I wanted full custody of my kids, but Eddie was fighting me for half. I know Eddie loves our children, but while we were married, he was never around. He just wasn’t a hands-on dad back then. I doubt he even knew how to bathe them or get them ready for bed.
Eventually, after months and months of back-and-forth on who would get what, I backed down—as I always did with him. It just wasn’t worth it anymore, and it was draining the life out of me. I was exhausted, depressed, and drinking too much for my own good. I was in a bad place. It simply wasn’t healthy to exert this much time and energy on hate and revenge. The continued fighting was consuming me, fucking me up. I concluded that I kept fighting with him to keep him in my life in some capacity. In my head, all of our arguments came from a place of passion. I realized that I was holding on to something that wasn’t there anymore. I guess I hadn’t been ready to completely let him go. But it was finally time.
Drinking and Tweeting Page 3