I was choosing between two bad options

Show Notes

• A writer reads her original personal essay about the moment she knew her marriage couldn't survive — a business trip, a broken collarbone, and a husband who refused to take their three-year-old son to the hospital
• Host Steph and the guest discuss what it means to heal from a relationship you didn't initially recognize as traumatic, and why recovery is anything but linear
• The impossible calculus of divorce when children are involved — staying feels wrong, but leaving means they're with the other parent without you there
• Why the essay's ending resonated so deeply with readers: the radical honesty of saying I am not yet strong at the broken places
• The particular isolation of high-conflict divorce, and why community — even an anonymous one — can be a lifeline

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Transcript

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Welcome back to Redacted, what Divorced Women Aren't Telling you. I'm your host, Steph Springer. Today's anonymous essay is a Quiet Gut Punch, and we're also talking about the moment when a marriage breaks, not all at once, but slowly, piece by piece and what it means to live. In the aftermath of that kind of quiet unraveling, our writer takes us back to a single business trip. A text exchange with her husband about their injured toddler that revealed fragment by fragment everything that was already broken in her marriage. This is a conversation about trauma, motherhood, especially working motherhood and the impossible choices women face when safety, love and family collide. She and I talk about what it means to finally name a relationship as traumatic. Why healing doesn't move in a straight line, and the fear that keeps so many women in marriages long past the point of no return. This one doesn't tie up neatly, and that's exactly why it matters. Enjoy listening to the day. I knew, from today's anonymous author and the conversation that follows the day I knew was there. One moment. There are very few human beings who receive the truth. Complete and staggering by instant illumination, right? Sonia Nin. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment on a small scale by successive developments cellularly like a laborious mosaic. Nins words are accurate in the sense that our marriage had indeed been breaking apart for years fragment by fragment. I had once bound us together was being chipped away, but it happened so gradually, so insidiously that I was often able to put it out of my mind. I knew that if I addressed it, the dam would break and the pain to flood in would be more than I could bear. Far too many incidents when coming out of the blue would've raised alarm bells. But when a mosaic of pain is slowly assembling around you, words or deeds that you once believed you would never accept, become so close to the previous breach of boundaries that you let them slide. If you were to ask me though, to name the day when I knew we could never find a way back, it was this one. I was away on a business trip, my husband and kids at home. He and I had swapped roles some five years earlier, me returning full-time to the career. I loved him taking over as the main caregiver for our daughter and later our baby son. At the time I thought, we both agreed that this was the right step for our family. He now denies that this was ever the case. The fact that his escalating resentment, isolation, and mistrust could and would become dangerous is something I didn't realize until it was much too late. How are things going? Standard check-in text. Fucking awful. Sandra fell down the stairs again. My heart lurched and I type back instantly. Oh my God. How bad was it? How did that happen? No response. My boss suggested I get an earlier flight home. I texted again 20 minutes later, offering this option. Weeks earlier, my husband's mobile had stopped making and receiving calls, and he had failed to get it fixed. Speaking to him wasn't an option. I had to hope he would reply. Let me know how bad it is. I typed again, my mobile vibrated. God knows. I'll take him to the doctor tomorrow if it doesn't improve. Did he bang his head has hurt his right shoulder more. Might have a broken collarbone. Not sure the world told on its access. Take him to the fucking hospital. Broken bones. Oh my God. You have to get him checked out. There's nothing they can do. He's three years old. Of course they can. There's nothing they can do. Panicking. I begged him to take Sam to the emergency room only to be met with no. He remembered his brother's hairline collarbone fracture as a kid, and insisted that as it couldn't be put in a cast, there was no reason to see a medical professional. I won't take him just to pacify you. That's unfair. He was unshakeable in his belief that I was overly anxious. The brick size chip on his shoulder about how difficult his life was and that I was just trying to make it worse, was clear. I changed tack, imploring him to put Sam first to remember. It was better to be safe than sorry. Acutely aware that he had all the power and I had none. My worst fear that something would happen to my child when I wasn't there had not only come to pass, but the very person entrusted with his care found it too inconvenient to take him to the hospital in an emergency. Two hours of silence followed. Colleagues who had erroneously believed to be friends melted away a preview of how my divorce would play out. Two years later, I found myself alone with my pain. The walls of my world silently crumbling our temporary office space with no natural light and lots of long corridors added to the disorienting feeling that I was lost. I paced the halls, a lump swelling in my throat formed of tears. My body was too tense to release. Finally, my husband texted again from the hospital realizing several hours after the accident that our son couldn't stand up straight. He had finally sought medical attention. They were waiting to be seen the working day over. I returned to my hotel and watched the elevator doors close on a laughing group of colleagues about to head out for dinner and drinks. Avoiding eye contact. I leaned against the reception desk, the sky darkening outside as I tried to put an airport taxi for 6:00 AM How's your son? Is he okay? Asked a colleague as he strode through the sliding glass doors. A rush of cold air blowing in around him. No, he's not. I replied, shakily my eyes filling with tears. He backed away. I secured the seats on the next available flight home. Received a text from my husband saying simply collar bone is broken and waited for the night to be over The sense of limbo continued in the airport where I mindlessly purchased two naughty shower caps, as if Gordy overpriced gifts could somehow make my absence forgivable. For the first time, I noticed fellow travelers wearing masks and there was a palpable tension in the air. What would later become known as the COVID Ovid 19 pandemic was beginning to spread exponentially, and the sense of foreboding in every dimension of my life was immense. The 65 minutes of the flight felt like could countdown to something dark and disturbing that I could not name. Finally, I walked through the door of my apartment to see my little boy pale and bandage, playing with his wooden trains. Tears pulled down my face as I tried not to let him know how upset I was aching to hug him, but fearful of causing more pain on the dining table, they an x-ray revealing his collarbone snapped into call A lawyer. My best friend texted me bluntly the next morning. I can't, I wrote back. Although my husband later came to deeply regret his choices on that fateful day, the immediate aftermath was defined by his defensiveness and resentment. You are the one who fucked off on a business trip. He spat at me. I knew that if we split, the children would spend much more time with him without me present. Something that as my son's bones slowly began to knit back together, I simply couldn't contemplate. Just three weeks later, Sam's collarbone was, in his words, all mended, but our marriage wasn't. Something had broken inside of me, inside of us, and it couldn't be rebuilt For months afterwards. I was too anxious to leave my son's side. Hypervigilance made possible by the nationwide lockdown that trapped the four of us in our small apartment like spiders under a glass. Eventually, I decided to join a forest bathing session an hour away, something my fractured nervous system very much needed. The fire ants and ticks that feasted on my exposed ankles. Chose to disagree before leaving. I asked my husband to only get in touch if there was an emergency. Two hours in, I noticed a missed call. Tiptoeing away from the rest of the group and picking my way deeper into the woods, I texted. Did something happen Half an hour, passed in the silence, the panic feeling of being a journey away from my children unable to provide the comfort and protection they needed came flooding back. No, but the kids miss you came the eventual reply. Sam is very sad you're not here. It was another fragment breaking away our relationship. Now a little more than the shattered remains of something that was once sacred and it couldn't be maned again. I realized that my husband didn't hear me, see me or loved me the way I needed to be loved. He resented me and piled on the guilt. Every time I tried to pursue the self-care, he simply didn't understand. And definitely did not provide. I don't feel safe with you. I eventually told him in the years that followed, I became fascinated with Kintsugi, the ancient Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics using lacquer and dusted with powered gold. It's no coincidence that the slow and careful process of reassembly is symbolic of resilience, rebirth, and hope. But while we couldn't repair a relationship, I could repair myself and reassemble a new version of our family. The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong in the broken places. These words by Ernest Hemingway have become a kind of mantra for many people recovering from trauma, but I do not believe I'm strong at the broken places. I still feel the pain of where I was hurt. The jagged dashes of fear, anxiety, and guilt, catching on the soft vulnerability of my heart. There are moments when I need to hold myself carefully, lest I break apart again and I still close my eyes when my son now eight years old, descends a flight of light of, thank you so much. I. Love that story and I loved listening to you read it. Um, thank you. There's something special about hearing the author read their pieces I spoke with a, an author yesterday. And there was a theme that we talked about that was also very resonant in your piece, which is, I am not yet strong at the broken places. This, this thinking that we've emerged from this, you know, we've been forged in the fire of this horrible trauma and we, we come out all, all shiny and new and, your piece and hers both really resonated with readers because there was a sense of gratitude at your transparency of saying, I am not yet strong at the broken places. Mm. Yeah, no, absolutely. I think it took me a long time to even acknowledge that the relationship itself was traumatic. I think one person commented that was a toxic relationship, and I never thought of it that way. Even when I was in it, I even after we split up mm-hmm. Takes a very long time to get perspective and start to heal. Yes, it takes a very long time to get perspective, and I think it also takes a very long time to get out of crisis trauma, survival mode. Mm-hmm. And. For me, I experienced, you know, once we'd kind of gotten through the worst of it, things almost felt worse for me because I was in a point of stability where I finally could look behind me and go, oh my God, what have we just endured? You know, when you, when you regain your footing, sometimes I think it can, it can be destabilizing in a different way because now you're not, your house isn't on fire, so you have the opportunity to look around it and go, oh my God. Yeah. Has anyone vacuumed or unloaded the dishwasher? Right. Whereas when you're in an active crisis, you can't have perspective. Mm, yeah. Absolutely. Definitely. Did you write this piece five years after it had happened or did you write it when it was fresher? Now I started writing it in, um, about January this year, I would say. Mm-hmm. Um, so he was, it was just before he turned eight. Um, so yes, actually exactly five years after it happened, because it was about one week after his third birthday that it happened and, um. It took me a very long time to write because even when I was reading it just now, my heart started beating very fast. Mm-hmm. Because it was so traumatic. Mm-hmm. And, um, it took me a very long time to relive. Um, those moments and to put them into words. And a mentor of mine helped me with it because she was able to give an outside perspective and, um. Initially when I wrote it, I tried to tie everything up in a boat at the end and say, well, now everything's okay. And she said to me, you don't have to do that. You know, you can just leave it as it is, which is, you still panic when you see him on a flight of stairs, which I do. Yes. And I think that actually made it more powerful and more honest. Yes. Oh, it absolutely did. As, as an editor, um, when I teach personal essay workshops, it's so important for an essay to have a resolution and it's. Even more important that the resolution not feel false, that it not feel. Mm-hmm. Like it has this false brightness or tied up in a bow because readers can sniff out that lack of, of, um. Authenticity and, and I think that's what got. So much engagement. And I think it's because you didn't tie things up in a bow. Because I think for the women who are still in the midst of this and you know, you don't sign a paper, close the door, move on with your life. I think those of us who are survivors of that. Know that it's a lot more complicated than I've turned the page and now everything's wonderful. Uh, we don't wanna hear that. We wanna hear what it's like. And I think that is what made me love this piece. I could feel the, the rawness and the honesty and um, and I was gonna ask you what it was like to, to read it and, and to write it and to relive it. Because I do think we have to take such good care of ourselves as writers. If we're writing about trauma, there are different rules. Yeah, it's, um, it took me really months of writing a bit, then leaving it, then coming back, writing a bit more, um, coming back to it and, um, reading it. Um, and especially reading it aloud. Yeah, it does take me back to those moments where I felt I did not have any control. Yes. And um, that that's what traumatizes, you know, when you, you can't control what's happening. And it's, it was my biggest, biggest, biggest fear that something would happen to, I have also a daughter. It was something would happen to one of them when I was not that. Yes, yes. You know? So, um, it's still traumatic now and I still have some anxiety now when they're not with me, but it's definitely gotten. Of course it much easier than it was in the immediate aftermath. I've gotten to a point where they can go on holiday abroad without me, and I enjoy the time for myself, whereas I couldn't have imagined that possible a few years ago. But I do still worry about them when they're not with me at the same time, you know? Mm-hmm. Yes. I, I, I do understand, and I think another really important element of your, of your essay was. That sense of knowing that a divorce was the right thing for you and that that fear of what that would mean about now, they would be with their other parent without your supervision. I believe that that fact alone keeps a lot of women in unhappy or even unsafe marriages and it makes me so sad that those are the two options and um, and it's not clear cut and I appreciate you calling that out in this piece. Yeah, and it's still really difficult, like when my daughter comes home and says, um, dad said this. Dad said that. Yes. Couple things, you know, things that he used to say to me, he says to her, yeah, and it's. So difficult when she says, you know, you're not there, you're not there to tell him to, that's not okay to say, you're not there with me. I'm there on my own. And it's so, so difficult because of course she also loves him. And, um, this is the kind of thing that I, I feared happening, but, um, I also couldn't prevent it when we were married. And, and there's that element of setting an example for your children so that when they are of an age to choose relationships for themselves, that they can look to you, but it is not a clear cut thing. And it does feel like, um, they're going to be casualties no matter what. And yeah, I felt like I was choosing between two bad options. Yes. But I also felt that I would be heartbroken if either of them ended up in a relationship. Where their partner constantly criticized them and constantly put them down. And I wanted to show them that it's not okay to be talked to that way or treated that way. And that was a major motivation for me actually. And the other one was that it was affecting my health and I started to get scared that, um, something would happen to me because I felt so bad. I felt like I was gonna have a stroke or a heart attack because I was so extremely stressed. And I went, woke up in the middle of the night once and had a, a panic attack in the middle of the night. And this wasn't entirely just due to him. I also had a very stressful job. Um, but I felt trapped in the job and the marriage, and I realized I needed to change everything. In order to be there for myself and for my children and to live a, a life that I wanted to live. You know, I wanna say that that's beautiful and inspiring because it is beautiful and inspiring. And I also know it's not, it's not that simple, is it? And, and I, I bet, I suspect you are getting stronger at the broken places every, every day. Some days I feel strong, really strong, and others I feel like broken again. You know, it's really, um, yes, it, it's, it's not a linear thing, you know? Not at all. I completely relate to that, and, and I do think that. As, as a, as we survivors of what they would call high conflict divorces. Um, that's what they call it here. Um, high conflict divorce if, if you've survived any kind of, of, of trauma or divorce. I think there are days when I think, look how strong I am. Look at all these amazing things I'm doing. And then there are other days when I think, how did I ever think that I had the strength? To do this. I, I can't possibly, and I do think the lack of a line of linear progress is, um, I think it must be universal. Yeah. And I do find the communities like yours extremely helpful because I feel very alone. I don't have clo any close friends who are divorced. And um, I'm also an expat. I don't live in my home country, I don't live in the uk And um, it's hard, you know, but it really does help to read the stories of other women online to interact with people and realize that you're not alone. That lots and lots and lots, unfortunately, many women experience similar. Situations, relationships, experiences, and come through them. Yes. I thank you for saying that. I think that's the perfect way to wrap this up because I, that's why I wanted to do it, and I felt like it had to be anonymous because we, we can't safely gather together and share all the things that we've been through. And so it feels like a way to build a community that's strong but also safe. Yes, definitely. Yeah. And I'm so grateful that you shared your story. It resonated so deeply with readers, and I think listening to you read it and, and, and process it a little bit, um, is also gonna be really, really helpful. I mean, this is, this is what it's about is, is people who are brave enough to, to relive those stories and share them because there is someone out there who is going to relate to what you wrote about and feel less alone in, in return. So, thank you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. I really do appreciate it. Thank you.