The Divorce Diaries
real life talk about what it takes to end a marriage
Welcome to a new series on The Mother Lode. As I have embarked on the divorce process, I have been desperate for real life accounts of how other people handled it. Did they mediate, and if so, did they have a consulting lawyer? Why does it take so long? How much did they end up paying lawyers? I wanted to know why? and does it have to be that way? And what do women wish they had done differently? What should I be looking out for?
Divorce has a whole language that you do not speak when you start the process. Marital standard of living? Imputed income or earning capacity? What the hell is a forensic accountant and why do I need to pay yet another professional?
We keep so much of divorce behind closed doors. Perhaps it is due to privacy and not wanting to air our dirty laundry. Perhaps it is because a lot of divorce is about money and money is another thing (along with sex, marriage, and divorce) that we just don’t talk about.
Right now we are in divorce season, which begins in January, when women put up with one more bad holiday season or perhaps feel reflective on hitting another year in a bad marriage and finally acknowledge that they are done. I too decided to divorce in January.
Divorce also seems to be having a moment, from
and You Could Make This Place Beautiful (being named one of the top 10 non-fiction books from 2023 by Time!) to whose Substack is refreshingly honest about the experience, to from Cup of Jo opening up about dipping a toe into the dating pool on . Lyz Lenz and Leslie Jamison both have books coming out about divorce on February 20. (I include a divorce reading list at the end of this post or visit my Bookshop page here).So I bring you The Divorce Diaries. In each entry, a woman has generously responded to my nosy questions. They remain anonymous (unless they want to be open about their identity) so that they can be honest. Do they pay or receive spousal support? How much? How did they determine their custody split? What is one thing they wish they’d done differently?
I am keeping these posts behind a paywall, both for those who share the details of the most difficult part of their life, and because I think this information has value. Becoming a paid subscriber of The Mother Lode is just $5 a month, and believe me, the insight in this series will be worth much more.
A component of my own divorce negotiation is the issue of “imputed income” or my “earning capacity.” As many of you know, during the pandemic, like millions of other mothers, I quit my job. For the previous eight years, I had been a ghostwriter, writing other peoples’ books for them. Given that my children didn’t go back to school full time until April 2021, I started writing in my own voice (it turns out the creative juice still needed to go somewhere). This newsletter began in November 2021. Then I began to write my memoir. Along the way I have been published in Scary Mommy, The Lily, Mutha Magazine, Isele Magazine, Brevity Blog, Literary Mama, and The Voices Project. Only one of those publications paid me. I also became the Publisher of Literary Mama from November 2021-May 2023 which was a volunteer position.
I have taken on a few clients during this time to bring in small amounts of income (as well as some Ghost-whispering sessions where I coach ghosts on how to get into the industry). But for the most part, I have been living on my partner’s wages. (Let’s also remember that the weird thing about writing books is that you do most of the labor up front and then get paid retroactively once you find a publisher).
When we decided to separate and I moved out of the family home, I felt like I needed to start making money. Leaning solely on his earnings no longer felt good (actually, it never felt good). I have amped up my consulting work and am in the process of trying to get my book published. However, my former partner wants me to go back to ghostwriting, a much more lucrative profession, which would make his support payments lower.
I can do that, and probably will. But in an ideal world, I would have this newsletter and writing my own books be my full-time job. So if you’ve been a reader of The Mother Lode for a while, consistently feel seen and validated by what I put forth within, or can spare the cost of a cup of coffee every month to keep this newsletter going, please signal its value by supporting this newsletter financially.
Without further ado, I share the first installment of The Divorce Diaries.
(Also, if any of you want to participate in this series, please send me a DM on Instagram). Also, please note I hope to include a wide rage of experiences, from different socioeconomic conditions to different races. To get a divorce requires money, an issue I hope to interrogate in this series.