SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

The Atlantic has an essay out by an execrable woman named Honor (deeply ironic) Jones. I recommend reading it, though it may trigger some. It doesn't involve infidelity, but I think it is highly relevant here on SI because it does dissect -- from the standpoint of a [strikethrough]wayward[/strikethrough] walkaway woman -- her navel-gazing motivations for leaving her marriage.

Essentially, she was bored, dear reader. That's it. Oh, and how the horrible patriarchy has kept her down.

Now she lives in an apartment and her children are forced to shuttle between her apartment and her ex-husband's apartment.

Like I said, fascinating reading (if a bit up-chuck-inducing). Although infidelity is never referenced, we are subjected here to the unreliable narrator -- and I think most here on SI have a finely tuned bullshit meter. So I'm skeptical there wasn't infidelity involved.

I can't think of an analogous essay being written by a man bragging about how he willfully destroyed his marriage and family because he was just so fed up with the Cheerios in his back seat (even though she lived a fabulously privileged lifestyle that would have made the Pharoahs blink in astonishment) but maybe someone can think of a recent example.

I've referred to it before, but there seems to be a growing cottage industry of books and magazine cover stories celebrating the "empowering" journey of women ditching their families in favor of disorder.

The essay is called "How I Demolished My Life." The author seems quite impoverished, if not materially, then most certainly spiritually and otherwise.

[This message edited by Thumos at 9:32 PM, Friday, January 7th]

I had caused so much upheaval, so much suffering, and for what? He asked me that, at first, again and again: For what? So I could put my face in the wind. So I could see the sun’s glare. I didn’t say that out loud.

Exactly what she promised, in her wedding vows, not to do. Breaking one of the most fundamental, bedrock promises of marriage. The kind of promise a spouse relies on, with complete trust, and builds a life on. For a whim.

I just read it, Thumos. It's full of feelings that will resonate with a lot of women.

Moms are tired of carrying the load. They're tired of being the first to have to give up their careers for anything child related. They're tired of fathers being seen as babysitters and expecting praise for looking after their own kids. They're tired of being the household manager, and all the thankless emotional labour that comes with that.

I don't think you'll understand what she's saying because you haven't been in the position where you felt your whole life was about facilitating others' lives. Where you never get to be the priority because you need to prioritize everyone else.

That doesn't make her a bad person, if she didn't cheat. She says she didn't; she just realized she needed to be an active participant in her own life.

And yes, that's hard on her kids, and I wouldn't want to give up half my time with my son to do some self exploration, but I certainly can understand her desire to do what SHE wants to do without having to consider other people.

To me? It's a really big essay on why people shouldn't get married so young. She doesn't know what she wants; she just knows it's not that. She didn't take the time to figure it out when she was younger (she says married at 21), because she didn't know better and went with societal expectations.

But she's a person and not just a mother. She deserves to have the time and space to figure out who she is and what she wants, and if she can't do that married, then there's nothing wrong with getting a divorce.

For heaven's sake, isn't it better that she chose to leave her husband rather than to cheat? Isn't that what everyone here wishes- that their partner would have ended the marriage before going off to greener pastures? I don't think shaming her for making that choice is reasonable.

And I don't think this article reads like she was leaving for another person, either. To me, it reads very clearly that she left for herself.

This selection of her prose sums up the utter vacuity of the biological robot that is Honor Jones:

By breaking up our family, I’d taken something from my kids that they were never going to get back. Naturally, I thought about this a lot. There was nothing I could give them to make up for it, except, maybe, a way of being in the world: of being open to it, and open in it.

Naturally. I mean.

A way of being in the world, and open in it. This is just noise. Just various pieces of the alphabet stuck together to fill magazine column inches. Completely meaningless drivel.

She doesn't even know why she's so solipsistic.

Moms are tired of carrying the load. They're tired of being the first to have to give up their careers for anything child related. They're tired of fathers being seen as babysitters and expecting praise for looking after their own kids. They're tired of being the household manager, and all the thankless emotional labour that comes with that.

I don't think you'll understand what she's saying because you haven't been in the position where you felt your whole life was about facilitating others' lives. Where you never get to be the priority because you need to prioritize everyone else.

And yet she makes the point precisely that her husband was great and didn't do this. And she already had a career. It was simply about boredom. And Cheerios. Even though she had a fulltime housekeeper. Her whole life was never about facilitating others' lives. That's why she felt "empowered" to leave in the first place. Her husband placed more priority on that than she did. Her fantasies about other men and women alluded to in the piece also kinda give away the game. But yes, props to her for blowing up her family without infidelity in service of nothing, I suppose. (if that's really true).

Thumos ngl when I first read the title I thought something terrible happened to you knowing your situation. Glad I'm mistaken

She just had a midlife crisis and did what so many do. She took a swing at the closest and most anchoring object in her life.

It's so unremarkable I'm surprised it got published.

Edit to add: I should write one about convertible sports cars and feeling the wind in my hair and the sun on my face.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 9:55 PM, Monday, January 3rd]

I should write one about convertible sports cars and feeling the wind in my hair and the sun on my face.

Exactly.

Thumos I really enjoy your writings here on SI for the most part. And a lot of what you share resonates with me.

But....

While I may see this gal as a maybe bit self-centered, I can't say I necessarily fault her observations. Women DO put aside a lot of themselves in marriage (I know I did). If she's anything like lot of the women I know, including me, my mom, my best friends etc, it can be a bit jarring when you start to find yourself adrift in your own existence and realize that you haven't had a real thought for yourself as a separate and individual brain for longer than you can remember. For me, my every thought for years was 'us', not 'ME'. When I separated, it was a bit shocking just how much energy I had put into US for so long. I had to work real hard to find ME again.

I do get looking at things with that infidelity filter on and I definitely do it too but I have to say here, I did not read this article as a wayward wife making excuses. I get being skeptical, but I also think BS's (myself included) a lot of times see infidelity zebras when those hoofbeats are really just horses. I think it's important to emphasize that this article was NOT about a woman 'empowering' herself by cheating or 'ditching her family' but instead by figuring out that she didn't want the 'married life' anymore and taking steps to separate in order to give herself the space to figure out what she wants in her next chapters. And honestly, if someone isn't all-in on the M, isn't it better for them to separate/divorce honestly instead of cheating?

Also - bit ranty - but just because a woman no longer wants to be married does not make her 'disordered'. Since when is singledom a disorder? I never want to get married again - that doesn't mean I am disrupting my life in favor of disorder, it means I KNOW that is not something I want so I will not walk that path, nor yet get married because it's what's 'expected' and not live my life authentically for myself. A woman 'ditching her family' to run off with an AP IS disordered IMHO, but a woman making a choice to find herself again? Not so much. Those two ideas are WORLDS apart.

You can have a season of self-discovery in the marriage. It's not hard. Ask for time to explore hobbies, go on a solo trip, get high and go for a hike. If you are stuck in a prison where your own expectations are the warden, just let yourself out.

I get being skeptical, but I also think BS's (myself included) a lot of times see infidelity zebras when those hoofbeats are really just horses.

Fair enough.

Women DO put aside a lot of themselves in marriage (I know I did). If she's anything like lot of the women I know, including me, my mom, my best friends etc, it can be a bit jarring when you start to find yourself adrift in your own existence and realize that you haven't had a real thought for yourself as a separate and individual brain for longer than you can remember. For me, my every thought for years was 'us', not 'ME'. When I separated, it was a bit shocking just how much energy I had put into US for so long. I had to work real hard to find ME again.

And yet, this is also precisely the experience of many betrayed husbands after the discovery of infidelity. I don't find this particularly unique to women, if in a marriage that is truly a "two become one" commitment.

Also - bit ranty - but just because a woman no longer wants to be married does not make her 'disordered'.

But willfully creating and countenancing the created disorder sorta does make one disordered. Just sayin' - I have a pretty high bar for divorce. I mean, in America, you can divorce because you don't like the set of your spouse's eyebrows. Or whatever. I just think the societal standard ought to be higher than dissatisfaction with Cheerios dust.

Moms are tired of carrying the load.

This presumes that Moms are the only one carrying the load. I won't bother with a laundry list outlining Dad loads as it will devolve into point/counterpoint. Deaf ears and all that.

Its oft repeated how men become more conservative as they age. Hand raised. A product of the 60's and 70's here with all of its 'hail the individual' and 'find yourself' that I once bought into. My lived life has brought me back around such that I've well and truly become my grandfather's grandson.

I reject the notion of marriage as a partnership of individuals. It is a 'joining.' Subsuming our individuality in 'the joining' is what we sign up for and particularly so when we have kids. There's plenty now researched and written regarding the advantages that children accrue from a two parent family. Frivolously abandoning this really is reprehensible.

Women DO put aside a lot of themselves in marriage (I know I did). If she's anything like lot of the women I know, including me, my mom, my best friends etc, it can be a bit jarring when you start to find yourself adrift in your own existence and realize that you haven't had a real thought for yourself as a separate and individual brain for longer than you can remember. For me, my every thought for years was 'us', not 'ME'.

So do men, or at least honorable men who take our role as husband and father seriously. In fact, that is the express contract husbands and wives make when they marry and have children. In the before time I played guitar in rock bands, got around town on fast motorcycles, enjoyed drop-of-the hat spontaneous adventures, etc. I loved that life. I knew I was giving it up to become a husband and father. It was a choice I made for myself, and then a promise I made to my wife as I looked her in the eye, before God and my family. It sunk home deeply a couple of years later on my birthday as I was walking with my toddler son on my shoulders to cheer him up (he wasn't feeling well) and he puked on my head. You know what I thought in that moment? "This is exactly what I signed up for. I didn't ask him if he wanted to come into this world. I brought him here without his consent, and it is my honor and pleasure to give this chunk of my life to creating a stable and loving home for him."

it can be a bit jarring when you start to find yourself adrift in your own existence and realize that you haven't had a real thought for yourself as a separate and individual brain for longer than you can remember. For me, my every thought for years was 'us', not 'ME'. When I separated, it was a bit shocking just how much energy I had put into US for so long. I had to work real hard to find ME again.

This easily could have been me, a 61 yr old man, writing this. On the day my wife told me she was pregnant, I ceased as an individual and starting self-identifying as a family man. Repossessing my individual self since splitting has been THE hardest thing I've ever encountered. Happens to men, too.

So do men, or at least honorable men who take our role as husband and father seriously. In fact, that is the express contract husbands and wives make when they marry and have children. In the before time I played guitar in rock bands, got around town on fast motorcycles, enjoyed drop-of-the hat spontaneous adventures, etc. I loved that life. I knew I was giving it up to become a husband and father. It was a choice I made for myself, and then a promise I made to my wife as I looked her in the eye, before God and my family. It sunk home deeply a couple of years later on my birthday as I was walking with my toddler son on my shoulders to cheer him up (he wasn't feeling well) and he puked on my head. You know what I thought in that moment? "This is exactly what I signed up for. I didn't ask him if he wanted to come into this world. I brought him here without his consent, and it is my honor and pleasure to give this chunk of my life to creating a stable and loving home for him."

Of course honorable men do this too! But if you woke up one day and realized that you wanted that old life back and that you were no longer content in your married life, you too have a right to choose to divorce and forge a different path. That's not an easy choice, and yeah it causes inconvenience and pain and etc, but you are allowed to change your mind. You're allowed to realize that you want something different. Mind you, I'm not saying I necessarily would agree with that choice, but I agree a hell of a lot more with THAT choice than with someone wanting something different and cheating.

Just saying that if you get married really young (like at 21 like the author), IMHO you don't know what you don't know yet about who you are as an adult person. And the normal evolution and growth of most people, it's pretty natural that you won't want the same things at 21 that you do at 35 or 40.

I guess I'm just saying (and this is based solely on my own history and life) that if you're in a marriage where you feel trapped and aren't happy for whatever reason, I don't think divorce is the worst thing you could choose to do.

Repossessing my individual self since splitting has been THE hardest thing I've ever encountered. Happens to men, too.

Sorry if it seemed like I was claiming that concept for women only - totally not my intention. I 100% agree it can happen like that for men too and does.

But if you woke up one day and realized that you wanted that old life back and that you were no longer content in your married life, you too have a right to choose to divorce and forge a different path.

I have the right. Sure. But each of us is nowt but the sum of his actions. A parent who makes that choice is a shyte human and defines himself as such by making such choice.

if you're in a marriage where you feel trapped and aren't happy for whatever reason, I don't think divorce is the worst thing you could choose to do

In the abstract, sure. For example, it would prolly be worse to murder your wife and kids in cold blood and then move to a distant country and start life over under an alias. Or start hitting the bottle heavily and beating up your wife. There is a spectrum of responses to feeling suffocated by the weight of being a parent and spouse.

However, every person who is a parent goes through periods of feeling suffocated, disappeared, lost. This is a normal cycle of life. The appropriate response isn't to simply run away. The author of the article Thumos cites does not describe spending a minute trying to suss out the source of her feelings and seeing if she could find a fix within the context of the marriage and family. Instead, she describes her only path of epiphany as realize she wanted out. It reeks of solipsism, which is anathema to the concept of being a spouse and parent.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 10:45 PM, Monday, January 3rd]

Sorry if it seemed like I was claiming that concept for women only - totally not my intention. I 100% agree it can happen like that for men too and does.

I didn't take it that way, Ellie. You made good points. I totally understand, especially in the past, how women were made to feel stifled and claustrophobic in a marriage. Unhealthy.

ETA: I guess it's harder to understand how this is really occurring in most marriages now, however. Even more conservative men like myself share a tremendous load. For example, I cook all of the family meals. We split laundry duty. Even as I've become more of a slob post D-Day, I still do the grocery shopping, do the meal planning, and do the cooking. Then I help my wife clean the kitchen afterward. She picks up the slack in other areas.

I don't see many marriages these days that represent a stifling 1950s environment, which is one reason I find the raft of books and magazine pieces the past several years so baffling and why I look at them with a jaundiced eye. I mean this Honor Jones lady, for instance. She references the patriarchy a lot, and how she just needs the space the think about it. That's why she broke up her family? Over a vague sociological concept developed from within neo-Marxist theory? She tacitly admits it's not even relevant to her marriage in the first place and that her husband is a standup guy (in fact, this admission seems de rigueur in this subgenre of writing). It sometimes feels like these particular women writers are like the drunk guy at the end of the bar shouting "you wanna piece of me!?" just ... well ... just because.

[This message edited by Thumos at 10:45 PM, Monday, January 3rd]

And yet, this is also precisely the experience of many betrayed husbands after the discovery of infidelity. I don't find this particularly unique to women, if in a marriage that is truly a "two become one" commitment.

Sorry Thumos - I in NO way meant to suggest that losing the ME was only a woman thing - sorry if that's how it read because totally was not my intention. I know this happens with men too.

Subsuming our individuality in 'the joining' is what we sign up for and particularly so when we have kids.

I will go with you on the kids point. When you're a parent, you do what's the best for your kids.

But sorry - I don't agree that I am no longer an individual with an SO. I think a healthy relationship is two whole-ass individual people, not two 50% people that are incomplete without each other. In fact, for me, I think it is patently UNhealthy to approach an SO/marriage relationship with the thought that neither of us is complete minus that other person. I don't want to be there again (cus I was) and I certainly don't want an SO/spouse who feels that way about ME. I am not saying I agree with breaking up a marriage for 'frivolous' reasons, but I also think that what's frivolous or not is not for me to say for someone else because so much of who you are in a relationship is the cumulative total of a lifetime of history and experience.

But willfully creating and countenancing the created disorder sorta does make one disordered.

Just curious, but why is it that you think a person changing their mind about what they want and need is creating a disorder? To bring it back to infidelity-related thought - are your wants/needs/expectations of your wife the same today as they were the day you got married? I daresay they likely aren't. Because YOU have changed. She has changed. The dynamics in the relationship have changed. If you decided to divorce tomorrow, it doesn't mean you're 'disordered'. It means that things have changed.

I mean, in America, you can divorce because you don't like the set of your spouse's eyebrows. Or whatever. I just think the societal standard ought to be higher than dissatisfaction with Cheerios dust.

Well, I agree with you about the cheerios dust and the eyebrows... but how often is the 'thing' not really about the 'thing'? One that relates to my marriage. I worked - the xwh did not. I was up and out of the house by 6am every day and the xwh usually slept in til 9-10. I like my bed being made - my xwh often wouldn't make the bed at all, or would do a lazy half-ass job at it. Drove me absolutely insane. But here's the thing - it wasn't about the fucking bed. It was about the underlying respect issue (or lack of respect issue rather) that the unmade bed represented. Not saying that's the author's thing or that I know what that cheerios dust was really about, but I would be willing to bet the cheerios dust wasn't just pulverized cereal, KWIM?

I have the right. Sure. But each of us is nowt but the sum of his actions. A parent who makes that choice is a shyte human and defines himself as such by making such choice.

I am not saying I agree necessarily with a parent making that kind of a choice. But I also don't agree with staying married 'for the kids' if you're in a relationship that is not 'sparking joy' anymore. I know - marriage is hard work and it isn't always 'happy' and 'joyous', and I'm not saying abandon the family if you feel an instant of unhappiness. But if you're in a spot (like I was) where the relationship makes you resentful and unhappy and miserable far more than it makes you happy anymore? I just don't agree with staying in a marriage like that. And in my case, even if he hadn't decided to fall dick-first into a teenager, I think I would have wound up divorced anyways, it just would have taken a lot longer for me personally to get there.

Mind you, I am saying that as a woman who is a BS, and had a mom that married and divorced assholes 3 times, so I have a rather jaded perspective on the whole institution of marriage to begin with