These days, it feels like every other book is about a marriage falling apart. There’s *This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life* by Lyz Lenz, *No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce* by Haley Mlotek, *Sucker Punch* by Scaachi Koul, *Liars* by Sarah Manguso, and one of the most talked-about novels of 2024, *All Fours* by Miranda July.

Slowly at first, then all at once, the idea of leaving a spouse has become almost glamorized for women—a kind of self-discovery journey. As Lenz puts it in *This American Ex-Wife*: *”I wanted to step off the martyr’s pyre and shed the roles I’d been handed at birth: mother, wife, daughter. I wanted to see what else I could be.”*

I get it. Growing up, I knew marriage was complicated. My single mother treated it like a plague—*”Why tie yourself down? Why settle for one man, one life?”* It was the ’70s, the era of the pill, and men were for fun, not forever. She was fine with uncertainty, never writing someone off just because they might have a wife stashed somewhere. For her, it was about the chase, not the catch. *”People are meant to be enjoyed in small doses,”* she’d say.

Watching her cycle through those “small doses,” I swore I wouldn’t follow in her footsteps. But I did—and early. I hated rules, obligations. If a teacher gave me a tough assignment, my first thought was, *Do I really have to do this?*

Love was no different. My first husband and I met in a yoga class, and before I knew it, I was pregnant, married, and a mother. But as the wedding neared, panic set in. I wanted stability but wasn’t ready for the weight of it. Trapped in a house with a man I couldn’t stand, raising a baby, I cracked. Leaving wasn’t a question—just a matter of when. (I later wrote about that time in my own divorce novel, *Synchronized Breathing*. By the end, the main character starts figuring out who she is without a man, throwing herself into her work. Love might be on the horizon, but nothing’s neatly resolved.)

Still, in my 40s, I tried again. My second husband, Rob, and I have been married for 13 years now. No one’s more shocked than I am.

Some days, choosing marriage feels like an addict choosing sobriety—one day at a time. My friend calls it the *”pause-and-attend factor”*—dropping everything when your partner needs you. To me, it sometimes feels as natural as peeling off my own skin. But after years of chaos, the fantasy of escape, of belonging only to myself, has lost its shine.

When Rob and I met, he was divorced, raising four kids, his life a mess. For nearly six years of dating, I told myself *he* was the one afraid of commitment—until my best friend gently broke the news: *”Everyone knows it’s you.”*

Back then, I wanted a man who made me feel safe. Now, the challenge was staying.

Rob played the long game. After we moved in together, I refused to unpack all my boxes—just in case I needed a quick exit. Eventually, he called me out.

*”It makes me feel like you’re not all in when you won’t unpack,”* he said. *”Like you’re just passing through.”*

I apologized, but the boxes stayed. So he tried a new approach: *”How about we just do one box this weekend?”*

Learning to ignore that old urge to run—My natural instinct—to build resilience and form new ways of thinking—didn’t develop on its own. It took therapy, both alone and with Rob; a few guided psychedelic sessions (which helped me release long-held resentments); and filling my life with activities beyond my marriage—volunteering with seal and sea lion rescues, writing, spending time with friends, attending book signings, taking classes—to learn how to stay committed to a partner without losing sight of myself and my desires. Some of this had to do with how my husband and I functioned as a couple, while other aspects were entirely my own journey.

I also came to realize how profoundly comforting it is to be truly known by someone over time. Rob and I have merged our families and shared in each other’s children’s lives. He’s been there for my highs and lows—including my open-heart surgery and long recovery—just as I’ve been there for his. There’s an undeniable comfort in sharing a life with someone, building that connection, and having a witness to the moments that shape it. I could have easily missed all of that.

Some people divorce to find themselves, and I tried that. But for others, the most radical choice is to stay married.