I'm 56, also with divorced parents. I went the opposite route and stayed single until I was 40. I was determined to "know myself" and have a full life on my own before I thought about marriage. My mother left my step-father when I was 25, and remained single (and bitter) until she died in 2018 at 80. I told myself I wouldn't end up like her, but then my husband died 2.5 years ago from cancer. I'm writing about my experiences as a widow, and while it's messy and raw, I feel it's important to be more open about grief and death - especially as us GenXers get older. I appreciate you talking about making different choices and changing perspectives as we age. I hope I'm getting wiser, but sometimes I don't know.
Divorce memoirs (by women) are having a moment for sure! (And I love to read about divorce from a female perspective—I’m sure I would not feel the same way about the man’s perspective…) My memoir is in large part about the aftermath of my parents’ divorce and as I work through ms revisions, the truth-telling/oversharing balance can be so hard to achieve.
Also, I’m so sorry your editor held your piece hostage over that line. That feels wildly unethical. And I’m sure in your shoes I would have made the same choice!
Much of the writing on divorce suffers from a lack of distance, perspective, wisdom - I'd welcome your storytelling on it from your POV now. (And that story about Glenda Bailey's over reach is shocking!)
I just finished my last round of revisions -- prior to the stage of sending it to beta readers that is -- of my memoir of growing up as a motherless only child, and how I was wrenched through changes to our family that I didn't see coming. I really really tried to balance "tell my unique version of the story" while giving grace and dignity and privacy to others. I sure hope I achieved that balance. Your Catapult essay helped me, Sari.
oh I love this—the wisdom and power of having perspective now. I'd longed for that distance for many stories I wanted to tell, but I knew I needed time and space to understand it fully. Also, I love how many times you call the Marie Claire article stupid and awful!! You did the best you could at the time.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I recently shelved somewhat of a divorce memoir I've been working on for 7 years after finally publishing an essay in HuffPost. The editor was fabulous. But the process made me realize I have a real privacy issue I can't get around without the legal resources of a big publisher. And even if that happened, I don't know that it would be right for me to move forward at this time. It's heartening to see another woman's journey through this. I know I have more meaningful work in my future. For now I'm dabbling in short fiction to experiment with the emotional truths I discovered while writing the memoir. Can't wait to see what evolves out of your new perspective on your work!
I think there’s also a counterpart to “the perception box”. It’s the “distorted expression box” maybe - the way our messages and intentions get distorted by our own experience, limitations, wounds. The anger that is really fear, but gets distorted through the lenses of our insecurity and comes out as harsh words, when really what we mean is “I am scared”. The blame that is really despair. The fake happiness that is really insecurity masquerading as “all is well”.
I love maggie smith’s divorce book (you could make this place beautiful). Such a unique way of capturing it all. Highly recommended.
I think there’s also a lot to be said for pre-divorce memoirs. The “will we make it, this is how it feels when you are going through the decision, facing up to the imperfections, asking yourself where the line is, and will we cross it”.
This was fascinating, with some parallels. I'm 59 (Baby Boom cusp, literally, with an early January birthday), also a longtime journalist. My parents were happily married for 42 years; 16 years after my father died, my mom still wears her wedding ring. At 30, I got a divorce from my ex five years and a child into my marriage.
I was the first divorce in my family. And it was in part because, with the exception of my parents, I had seen grandparents, aunts and uncles go through miserable marriages filled with strife, affairs, and mental illness. As a kid, every time we went to a family outing, I remember asking my parents why those couples were still together.
When I turned 30, I asked myself that same question. The two years following the birth of our son and an out-of-state move had resulted in irreparable fissures in the relationship. The final straw was when I developed strong feelings — not an affair — for another person. I could follow in the path of my grandparents, aunts and uncles and "make it work" by fundamentally changing who I was. Or, I could pursue a relationship more like the one my parents had.
The divorce was ugly. My ex and I went through the Catholic version of annulling our marriage, which made no sense to me (a non-Catholic) because we had a child together. We found ourselves in court twice over support payments. We have spoken only a handful of times — primarily around our son's wedding — in the past 16 years. I continue to have lifelong guilt for leaving my son to save my own soul.
My second go-round (with the person I had strong feelings for) has lasted 27 years, which has only deepened the strife and anger on my ex's part. Number 2 has not always been easy, but it is much closer to the marriage my parents had, despite the challenge of having three kids born within a calendar year (hence the name of my Substack).
I've written about the challenges of raising this family and have thought about a memoir, but I've never known how to address the divorce. Thank you for this. It's tremendously thoughtful and inspiring.
Thank you for sharing about your journey about writing about your divorce. I’m curious how your thinking has evolved about writing about others - what to share, what not to share, how to share it all. I’ve contemplated it a lot and, so far, fear of others’ reactions have kept me quiet-ish.
The current surge of divorce memoirs signal a turn that women's stories are more possible to tell in our own words, even than they were in recent history (wow your editor!). But, as someone who is almost ten years out of a divorce with children, with lots of different turns in the post-divorce years, the immediacy of these divorce stories gets me. That immediacy feels so important, a working through that we as readers get to be with... and yet, they often leave me with this feeling that so much more is coming, that isn't possible to write about yet. I guess I hope you still write your divorce memoir with all the perspective that comes with living through it and into another life.
Sari, thanks for bringing sensitivity and compassion to this, and for sharing your hard-won lessons. Many young writers, women especially, are overly accommodating to editors. Editors, in turn, face pressures that make it difficult to prioritize the long term of interests of their writers....who are, after all, humans.
I'd be interested to read more about writerly regrets (esp women writers' regrets).... I've got a few myself!
I've recently read some divorce memoirs and essays that are pretty brutal, but I'm glad they're out there. I've read everything you've written about being a child of divorce as well as your regrets about writing about your own family the way you did in earlier work. I read what you wrote originally, and I didn't think it brutal at all. I almost think you're "too nice" about your own suffering when your parents decided to find themselves. It's your story, and I want to read it. I hope you write it exactly as it happened, the way you want to write it. Keep the "niceness" editor out. As well as the lawsuit editor, for that matter. I can see a caveat if there are children involved, but in this case, you are the "child" involved. And I think it's okay to write about an ex, as a memoir is about one's own experience.
A good friend, a fellow writer, has been on me about writing a divorce memoir. I have written a few pieces about my divorce (including my story about raising the Golem for Catapult, Sari, which you beautifully edited) but I struggle with what goes in and what goes out. During my divorce, my now ex's lawyer sent over a request that I stop writing about it, but it was just that, a request which I ignored. I have done a fair bit of desktop research around the legal risks and I remain... uncertain about if I'll proceed. I would like to write about it, I have a fair bit to say, but I just don't know how to tackle it.
I'm 56, also with divorced parents. I went the opposite route and stayed single until I was 40. I was determined to "know myself" and have a full life on my own before I thought about marriage. My mother left my step-father when I was 25, and remained single (and bitter) until she died in 2018 at 80. I told myself I wouldn't end up like her, but then my husband died 2.5 years ago from cancer. I'm writing about my experiences as a widow, and while it's messy and raw, I feel it's important to be more open about grief and death - especially as us GenXers get older. I appreciate you talking about making different choices and changing perspectives as we age. I hope I'm getting wiser, but sometimes I don't know.
Divorce memoirs (by women) are having a moment for sure! (And I love to read about divorce from a female perspective—I’m sure I would not feel the same way about the man’s perspective…) My memoir is in large part about the aftermath of my parents’ divorce and as I work through ms revisions, the truth-telling/oversharing balance can be so hard to achieve.
Also, I’m so sorry your editor held your piece hostage over that line. That feels wildly unethical. And I’m sure in your shoes I would have made the same choice!
Much of the writing on divorce suffers from a lack of distance, perspective, wisdom - I'd welcome your storytelling on it from your POV now. (And that story about Glenda Bailey's over reach is shocking!)
I just finished my last round of revisions -- prior to the stage of sending it to beta readers that is -- of my memoir of growing up as a motherless only child, and how I was wrenched through changes to our family that I didn't see coming. I really really tried to balance "tell my unique version of the story" while giving grace and dignity and privacy to others. I sure hope I achieved that balance. Your Catapult essay helped me, Sari.
oh I love this—the wisdom and power of having perspective now. I'd longed for that distance for many stories I wanted to tell, but I knew I needed time and space to understand it fully. Also, I love how many times you call the Marie Claire article stupid and awful!! You did the best you could at the time.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I recently shelved somewhat of a divorce memoir I've been working on for 7 years after finally publishing an essay in HuffPost. The editor was fabulous. But the process made me realize I have a real privacy issue I can't get around without the legal resources of a big publisher. And even if that happened, I don't know that it would be right for me to move forward at this time. It's heartening to see another woman's journey through this. I know I have more meaningful work in my future. For now I'm dabbling in short fiction to experiment with the emotional truths I discovered while writing the memoir. Can't wait to see what evolves out of your new perspective on your work!
I think there’s also a counterpart to “the perception box”. It’s the “distorted expression box” maybe - the way our messages and intentions get distorted by our own experience, limitations, wounds. The anger that is really fear, but gets distorted through the lenses of our insecurity and comes out as harsh words, when really what we mean is “I am scared”. The blame that is really despair. The fake happiness that is really insecurity masquerading as “all is well”.
I love maggie smith’s divorce book (you could make this place beautiful). Such a unique way of capturing it all. Highly recommended.
I think there’s also a lot to be said for pre-divorce memoirs. The “will we make it, this is how it feels when you are going through the decision, facing up to the imperfections, asking yourself where the line is, and will we cross it”.
The Perception Box! Thanks so much for this.
This was fascinating, with some parallels. I'm 59 (Baby Boom cusp, literally, with an early January birthday), also a longtime journalist. My parents were happily married for 42 years; 16 years after my father died, my mom still wears her wedding ring. At 30, I got a divorce from my ex five years and a child into my marriage.
I was the first divorce in my family. And it was in part because, with the exception of my parents, I had seen grandparents, aunts and uncles go through miserable marriages filled with strife, affairs, and mental illness. As a kid, every time we went to a family outing, I remember asking my parents why those couples were still together.
When I turned 30, I asked myself that same question. The two years following the birth of our son and an out-of-state move had resulted in irreparable fissures in the relationship. The final straw was when I developed strong feelings — not an affair — for another person. I could follow in the path of my grandparents, aunts and uncles and "make it work" by fundamentally changing who I was. Or, I could pursue a relationship more like the one my parents had.
The divorce was ugly. My ex and I went through the Catholic version of annulling our marriage, which made no sense to me (a non-Catholic) because we had a child together. We found ourselves in court twice over support payments. We have spoken only a handful of times — primarily around our son's wedding — in the past 16 years. I continue to have lifelong guilt for leaving my son to save my own soul.
My second go-round (with the person I had strong feelings for) has lasted 27 years, which has only deepened the strife and anger on my ex's part. Number 2 has not always been easy, but it is much closer to the marriage my parents had, despite the challenge of having three kids born within a calendar year (hence the name of my Substack).
I've written about the challenges of raising this family and have thought about a memoir, but I've never known how to address the divorce. Thank you for this. It's tremendously thoughtful and inspiring.
Thank you for sharing about your journey about writing about your divorce. I’m curious how your thinking has evolved about writing about others - what to share, what not to share, how to share it all. I’ve contemplated it a lot and, so far, fear of others’ reactions have kept me quiet-ish.
The current surge of divorce memoirs signal a turn that women's stories are more possible to tell in our own words, even than they were in recent history (wow your editor!). But, as someone who is almost ten years out of a divorce with children, with lots of different turns in the post-divorce years, the immediacy of these divorce stories gets me. That immediacy feels so important, a working through that we as readers get to be with... and yet, they often leave me with this feeling that so much more is coming, that isn't possible to write about yet. I guess I hope you still write your divorce memoir with all the perspective that comes with living through it and into another life.
I love this essay, and I’d love to read your perspective on what happened so long ago. ❤️
Sari, thanks for bringing sensitivity and compassion to this, and for sharing your hard-won lessons. Many young writers, women especially, are overly accommodating to editors. Editors, in turn, face pressures that make it difficult to prioritize the long term of interests of their writers....who are, after all, humans.
I'd be interested to read more about writerly regrets (esp women writers' regrets).... I've got a few myself!
I've recently read some divorce memoirs and essays that are pretty brutal, but I'm glad they're out there. I've read everything you've written about being a child of divorce as well as your regrets about writing about your own family the way you did in earlier work. I read what you wrote originally, and I didn't think it brutal at all. I almost think you're "too nice" about your own suffering when your parents decided to find themselves. It's your story, and I want to read it. I hope you write it exactly as it happened, the way you want to write it. Keep the "niceness" editor out. As well as the lawsuit editor, for that matter. I can see a caveat if there are children involved, but in this case, you are the "child" involved. And I think it's okay to write about an ex, as a memoir is about one's own experience.
A good friend, a fellow writer, has been on me about writing a divorce memoir. I have written a few pieces about my divorce (including my story about raising the Golem for Catapult, Sari, which you beautifully edited) but I struggle with what goes in and what goes out. During my divorce, my now ex's lawyer sent over a request that I stop writing about it, but it was just that, a request which I ignored. I have done a fair bit of desktop research around the legal risks and I remain... uncertain about if I'll proceed. I would like to write about it, I have a fair bit to say, but I just don't know how to tackle it.