Debbie Roth’s Reviews > Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage > Status Update

I hope because I was open about what happened to me, my children will insist on intimacy, on knowing their partner deeply, on being known deeply. I hope they will talk to their partners about money, about what will happen if the partnership ends. I hope that as they build trust in their relationships, they never lose sight of their own authority, their own voice, their own intuition.

I could see that some people, both online and in person, were uncomfortable with me coming out of my lane, a place where women stayed quiet, where men are allowed to do what serves them, no matter what the wreckage. I could see they were defending something bigger, a way of life, the safety it gave them.

I did the race again. I went by myself, sitting on the bus alone, standing in the crowd at the starting line…But as I ran, as I encountered each hill, as I plodded slowly up the gradual slopes, I felt steady, solid. My breath was even. I didn’t worry about all the people passing me. I told myself any finish time was fine, as long as I didn’t stop. To my amazement, I beat all my previous times.

Slowly, over many months, as my head came out of the sand, a form of joy set in—joy born of replacing the not knowing with knowing, the nub of worry with clarity, the lack of control with control. All made easier, of course, by the fact that I had enough to feel secure, to make my children secure. I thought, This is better than everything I lost. This is better than the life I thought I wanted.

It helped to take responsibility for it. To see the moments, over twenty years, when I hadn’t protected myself, when…I had put myself here, one decision at a time. I agreed to change the prenup, dismissing legal advice. I put both our names on the deeds. I chose not to be involved in our financial life. I failed to make sure our prenup was extinguished. I failed to think about what would happen if our marriage ended.

Some people say the end of a marriage is always fifty-fifty, that each partner bears equal responsibility. “It takes two to tango.” I’d heard this about other divorces, often about the wife who was left, even when the husband had engaged in years of betrayals and lies: She wasn’t fun enough. She was too focused on the kids. She didn’t pay enough attention to him. I’m sure similar things were said about me.

“James leaving Belle could be a good thing. My father left my mother for another woman, and she was the love of his life. They were so happy together.” I stopped walking, stunned by her words. This was a good thing? This was a love story? What about MY love story with James? In this man’s telling, I was the casualty of someone else’s destiny. My despair was their happy ending.

Susan said, “I think people have a language for death; they know what to do, what to say. But there is no script for divorce, especially one as dramatic as yours.”

Where we’d sat as recently as March, unaware that everything was about to change, in the world and in our family. I could almost see the dark cloud hovering over us. But it was as though the cloud, the darkness, was only over me and the girls; James sat under a sunny sky.

I struggled to get out of bed each morning. It was like a weighted blanket was on me, preventing me from moving,..I kept the television on, letting it run for hours, from early local news to Good Morning America to daytime talk shows…Within a couple of weeks, I was doing a wide loop around Vineyard Haven and West Chop, totaling nearly eight miles every day, religiously, in sunshine, rain, and, once, hail.