New dishes were one of the first things I bought myself when he moved out. When we registered gifts before we married, he was such an asshole to me about it because he didn’t think we should register for anything we already had. (Never mind that everything we had was shitty multi-generation hand-me-downs from when we were university students.) it’s tradition in my family for women to have a fancy china pattern so everyone can buy you pieces of your set and he was so cruel to me about owning a second set of dishes that I didn’t pick a fancy china or an every day set.
Anyway, I’ve had my new dishes for four years now and they are so pretty that it makes me happy to eat off them every day.
I love this post! It also made me remember a few of my knowing moments in my first marriage.. am sure there are more if I allow myself to remember. The most painful was being at a wedding with him and him avoiding me for every slow song that played even as our couple friends swayed lovingly on the dance floor. That was when I knew that he knew, and was too afraid to tell me. I confronted him when we got home and that conversation prompted our splitting. The “I don’t know” as a way to avoid the knowing also resonates so much!!
I have never read Women Who Run with the Wolves but I do vividly remember it as one of the books in Dad’s study growing up. I even think it may have been one that I took with me (but that sadly I think didn’t survive one of my myriad moves as I sought to find myself post divorce). It feels in way that it’s relevant though, and a way that Dad is looking out for you sending it in your path at this stage. Love you!
It was like reading a description of how I felt inside in the very long run up to leaving my partner. We weren’t married but met very young and were together for 10 years - house, car, dog the lot, no children. I’ve never heard or seen anywhere else a description of those waves of knowing that you dismiss. 2 years before the end of our relationship his parents (whom I love and I consider family) came to visit. When they left to go I was waving them off and a bolt of clarity hit me “I won’t see them again”. The pain of that thought contributed I think to staying even longer with my partner. I’ve had this bolt feeling a few times since and it terrifies me but seems to always manifest.... eventually.
I am 4 years post leaving and on paper my life looks poor (and by his standards) but the richness internally is worth more than anything else. Leaving is a leap of faith and that’s why it’s difficult - what’s the other side? Is it worth it? We have no idea.
It’s still not easy - I’m still unpicking it and my next challenge is feeling boundaried and secure enough in myself to venture into a new relationship.
Thank you for sharing - even now it helps to know that I wasn’t just “messed up” and destined to be alone.
Another excellent piece. You take me back twenty five years, but it's all still fresh in my mind. Even down to buying the new set of china...I bought a beautiful yellow coffee pot and set of cups and saucers, which I knew I would hardly ever use, but it felt delicious because it was completely my decision for my new life. I still have them and I still remember how I felt when I bought them!
I loved this essay so much, Cindy, nodding my head in recognition at so much of what you said, right down to some of the descriptions of your relationship with your ex. And I had a little ironic laugh at the average time it takes for a couple to consider divorce is three years--for me, 23 years--but once The Knowing began to be a presence I couldn't ignore, time fast-forwarded and between May and September 2022 following tense discussions and much silence (from his part, as he was away, hiding, I believe, from his own Knowing), it was over. So when you write these words, it is my heart you are describing too. Thank you for being so honest and vulnerable, for joining me in celebrating "so much life in the unknowable": "I also write these words because I am not alone in these knowings, in these fears, in the ways we try so hard to make impossible situations tolerable. I write about life on the other side because we have set up divorce as the thing to avoid at all costs, and yes, it is hard, yes, it upends everything, but it also sets you free. It washes away the future you had planned and there is something so inviting in not knowing what comes next. We are conditioned to want the happily ever after, a future secured, but there is also so much life in the unknowable, the uncertain, the ambiguity, the adventure."
It was a lot of trying and not wanting to give up as that isn’t in my nature & much was good about us & we had two amazing daughters we both love dearly. But eventually as my 50s became my early 60s, what wasn’t good outweighed what was good. And the part that wasn’t good was in fact really bad: extinguishing my own light to keep the marriage going. You made the right choice. I try not to steep in the regret about not divorcing in my 40s when we started to break apart. Trying very hard to believe in new chapters at any age.
I read WWRW the Wolves in my 20s and was just getting the hunch to read it again in my 30s. I think it’s an at-least-once-decade prerequisite. So much wisdom there. Thanks for this fabulous post!
I had never read it though of course had heard about it. I'm reading it really slow because I am finding it dense with insight. It's becoming a kind of text I turn to before meditating or to remind myself of the particular fraught state that I am in, that of becoming.
I'm so grateful to have watched you do all of this in a public way (and yet, still private, it's a balance for sure). You have given me courage to put my own insights out there in the hopes that I too can help people identify their own knowings or need to leave.
"But like many inconvenient knowings, I had learned to shake the knowledge off, stuff it down, drown it out. Like all truth, it could only be buried so long."
These words are powerful! May we all find the time/attention/confidence to dig into those inconveniences. Bravo!
I am also a twin (fraternal), and my sister and I are extremely close which can be difficult for our spouses at times because we understand each other in a way that I don’t think anyone else ever could. We have both been with our husbands since 2011(I’ve been married 10 years, she’s been married 9), and we talk often about how when we envisioned our marriages we always thought we would be better at communicating by now than we are. We both married men who are great fathers and great at dividing up household responsibilities but not the greatest at being sensitive to our specific needs from them (they are both not the best at being truly empathetic- her husband is neurodivergent, and I think mine struggles because of his job as a police officer). We both had conversations earlier this year with our husbands where we agreed that we are committed to staying married despite the tougher time we have been having specifically this year. My sister and I both are in individual therapy which we hope will help with our anxiety/ADHD and help us cope better.
Thank you so much for sharing. Yes, I think growing up as a twin makes it particularly challenging to be married to. We already have a reference point for a partner, a soul mate, and it can be jarring when this other person, who is supposed to "get" you, doesn't get you in the way you are accustomed to. I am hoping to start a section of this newsletter called Twin Talk where I interview twins about these issues! So stay tuned!
New dishes were one of the first things I bought myself when he moved out. When we registered gifts before we married, he was such an asshole to me about it because he didn’t think we should register for anything we already had. (Never mind that everything we had was shitty multi-generation hand-me-downs from when we were university students.) it’s tradition in my family for women to have a fancy china pattern so everyone can buy you pieces of your set and he was so cruel to me about owning a second set of dishes that I didn’t pick a fancy china or an every day set.
Anyway, I’ve had my new dishes for four years now and they are so pretty that it makes me happy to eat off them every day.
Thank you for this candid post that I wish I had read when I was going through my own divorce 13 years ago...
I love this post! It also made me remember a few of my knowing moments in my first marriage.. am sure there are more if I allow myself to remember. The most painful was being at a wedding with him and him avoiding me for every slow song that played even as our couple friends swayed lovingly on the dance floor. That was when I knew that he knew, and was too afraid to tell me. I confronted him when we got home and that conversation prompted our splitting. The “I don’t know” as a way to avoid the knowing also resonates so much!!
I have never read Women Who Run with the Wolves but I do vividly remember it as one of the books in Dad’s study growing up. I even think it may have been one that I took with me (but that sadly I think didn’t survive one of my myriad moves as I sought to find myself post divorce). It feels in way that it’s relevant though, and a way that Dad is looking out for you sending it in your path at this stage. Love you!
It was like reading a description of how I felt inside in the very long run up to leaving my partner. We weren’t married but met very young and were together for 10 years - house, car, dog the lot, no children. I’ve never heard or seen anywhere else a description of those waves of knowing that you dismiss. 2 years before the end of our relationship his parents (whom I love and I consider family) came to visit. When they left to go I was waving them off and a bolt of clarity hit me “I won’t see them again”. The pain of that thought contributed I think to staying even longer with my partner. I’ve had this bolt feeling a few times since and it terrifies me but seems to always manifest.... eventually.
I am 4 years post leaving and on paper my life looks poor (and by his standards) but the richness internally is worth more than anything else. Leaving is a leap of faith and that’s why it’s difficult - what’s the other side? Is it worth it? We have no idea.
It’s still not easy - I’m still unpicking it and my next challenge is feeling boundaried and secure enough in myself to venture into a new relationship.
Thank you for sharing - even now it helps to know that I wasn’t just “messed up” and destined to be alone.
Another excellent piece. You take me back twenty five years, but it's all still fresh in my mind. Even down to buying the new set of china...I bought a beautiful yellow coffee pot and set of cups and saucers, which I knew I would hardly ever use, but it felt delicious because it was completely my decision for my new life. I still have them and I still remember how I felt when I bought them!
I loved this essay so much, Cindy, nodding my head in recognition at so much of what you said, right down to some of the descriptions of your relationship with your ex. And I had a little ironic laugh at the average time it takes for a couple to consider divorce is three years--for me, 23 years--but once The Knowing began to be a presence I couldn't ignore, time fast-forwarded and between May and September 2022 following tense discussions and much silence (from his part, as he was away, hiding, I believe, from his own Knowing), it was over. So when you write these words, it is my heart you are describing too. Thank you for being so honest and vulnerable, for joining me in celebrating "so much life in the unknowable": "I also write these words because I am not alone in these knowings, in these fears, in the ways we try so hard to make impossible situations tolerable. I write about life on the other side because we have set up divorce as the thing to avoid at all costs, and yes, it is hard, yes, it upends everything, but it also sets you free. It washes away the future you had planned and there is something so inviting in not knowing what comes next. We are conditioned to want the happily ever after, a future secured, but there is also so much life in the unknowable, the uncertain, the ambiguity, the adventure."
Thank you, Amy. 23 years! That is crazy but I am so glad you are on the other side.
It was a lot of trying and not wanting to give up as that isn’t in my nature & much was good about us & we had two amazing daughters we both love dearly. But eventually as my 50s became my early 60s, what wasn’t good outweighed what was good. And the part that wasn’t good was in fact really bad: extinguishing my own light to keep the marriage going. You made the right choice. I try not to steep in the regret about not divorcing in my 40s when we started to break apart. Trying very hard to believe in new chapters at any age.
I read WWRW the Wolves in my 20s and was just getting the hunch to read it again in my 30s. I think it’s an at-least-once-decade prerequisite. So much wisdom there. Thanks for this fabulous post!
I had never read it though of course had heard about it. I'm reading it really slow because I am finding it dense with insight. It's becoming a kind of text I turn to before meditating or to remind myself of the particular fraught state that I am in, that of becoming.
Thanks for including me and HONEY STAY SUPER! x
I'm so grateful to have watched you do all of this in a public way (and yet, still private, it's a balance for sure). You have given me courage to put my own insights out there in the hopes that I too can help people identify their own knowings or need to leave.
"But like many inconvenient knowings, I had learned to shake the knowledge off, stuff it down, drown it out. Like all truth, it could only be buried so long."
These words are powerful! May we all find the time/attention/confidence to dig into those inconveniences. Bravo!
This was very well-written and very relatable.
I am also a twin (fraternal), and my sister and I are extremely close which can be difficult for our spouses at times because we understand each other in a way that I don’t think anyone else ever could. We have both been with our husbands since 2011(I’ve been married 10 years, she’s been married 9), and we talk often about how when we envisioned our marriages we always thought we would be better at communicating by now than we are. We both married men who are great fathers and great at dividing up household responsibilities but not the greatest at being sensitive to our specific needs from them (they are both not the best at being truly empathetic- her husband is neurodivergent, and I think mine struggles because of his job as a police officer). We both had conversations earlier this year with our husbands where we agreed that we are committed to staying married despite the tougher time we have been having specifically this year. My sister and I both are in individual therapy which we hope will help with our anxiety/ADHD and help us cope better.
Thank you so much for sharing. Yes, I think growing up as a twin makes it particularly challenging to be married to. We already have a reference point for a partner, a soul mate, and it can be jarring when this other person, who is supposed to "get" you, doesn't get you in the way you are accustomed to. I am hoping to start a section of this newsletter called Twin Talk where I interview twins about these issues! So stay tuned!
That sounds really interesting!
Thank you for stopping me in my tracks with this extremely relatable piece.
So brave! And yes, you do speak for many women that hopefully feel less alone having read your words.