At 8:32 this morning, I was still feeling foggy from the whirlwind of making lunch, unstacking the dishwasher, and shepherding my child to school—typical tasks on weeks when my daughter is with me. It was in the midst of this morning rush that my phone chimed with a text message: “Who would've thought? The Golden Couple already split. I didn’t think they would stay together forever, but I would have guessed they’d be too embarrassed to quit so soon. I forgot; it’s reality TV.”

The text came from my friend and mentor, Ann, who had become engrossed in the Golden Bachelor at Slate’s recommendation (and wrote this insightful piece about being 67 and single when the show’s finale aired last November). It took me a moment to grasp her meaning: Who was she referring to? Ah, Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist, the senior citizen lovebirds who had triumphed at the end of Gerry’s stint as the septuagenarian Bachelor. Officially over. Talk about fading from memory. As Scott Nover aptly noted in Slate on Friday regarding the conclusion of their brief three-month marriage, “the American attention span for Gerry and Theresa’s fleeting love story had waned.”

Well, I suppose I have a bit more space in my personal attention span because I spent the majority of the day trying to decipher why these headlines about the Golden Couple's divorce were affecting me so profoundly. Yes, I confess, I closely followed the ups and downs of the entire season. I even came to terms with their match in the end. However, I found their televised wedding to be rather dull and off-putting. And as they gave subsequent interviews about their future plans together, I couldn't help but wonder: Were they truly going to uproot themselves from their respective grandchildren in Indiana and New Jersey to settle in... Charleston, South Carolina, as they claimed they would?

Now we have the answer, as confirmed by their scripted announcement on Good Morning America this Friday morning—they're calling it quits. But I refuse to label it as a divorce. At best, it's a "divorce," much like their relationship was a "marriage." A divorce involves dividing assets, discussions about family holidays and child custody, decisions regarding retirement funds, or shared possessions like a car. Divorce entails tough choices—most notably, the decision to end a marriage! There's simply no way Gerry and Theresa had enough time together to accumulate anything that necessitates a divorce in the traditional sense. And even if they had to have some serious discussions about parting ways—deciding to divorce can take some couples years!—how many conversations could they have possibly had? They tied the knot in January!

Now, there might be some dispute over that Golden Bachelor money, but I highly doubt it. It appears to be the kind of issue that was sorted out in extensive paperwork with ABC months ago. Surely, they didn't have a joint bank account at the time of their marriage, so they likely received their payments directly into their individual accounts via ACH—no hassle there!

It's evident by now, I'm speaking from personal experience. I am divorced. And I likely have one of the most remarkable divorce stories you'll ever come across, as my ex-husband and I are remarkably close, dedicated co-parents, and forever family. We have keys to each other’s homes, and we spend time together frequently. Just last weekend, our daughter stayed with my (second) husband while I went to a concert with my first husband. Can you keep up with that? It tends to baffle people quite often!

But reaching this point wasn’t easy. It was tough because going through a divorce is incredibly challenging! Even if, like us, you don’t have significant assets and things are relatively straightforward, untangling years of shared life, possessions, and emotions is no easy feat. In the best-case scenario, you can end up like us. However, more often than not, the dissolution of a life together brings to the surface so many emotions and issues that we try to bury in the back of our minds, resulting in a mess that can never truly be fully cleaned up. Every divorced individual I know gives it their all. Yet, there's a particular kind of lingering sadness—and often much more—even when things are as amicable as humanly possible.

I'm not lamenting that Gerry and Theresa won't have to endure this enduring aftermath. However, let's label the conclusion of their "marriage" for what it truly is: a breakup. They couldn't agree on where to settle, and their relationship didn't pan out. While it may be legally termed a divorce, it essentially equates to nothing more than a short-lived, failed engagement.