“We are afraid of dying alone, but no one really knows lonely better than a married woman sitting next to her silent husband.”
Lyz Lenz may not be a household name yet, but her newest book, This American Ex-Wife, now out in paperback, should change that. It’s also available in digital and audio formats, in case you need not to reveal to someone that you’re reading a book on divorce.
40-50% of first marriages in the US end in divorce. About two thirds of second marriages come to that end. Even so, the US divorce rate has dropped precipitously since 1990 - perhaps because fewer people have been getting married, and they’ve been marrying later.
Given how common divorce is, you’d think it would be considered a commonplace by now, accepted as a fact of life, and made easy – especially since some marriages end because of violence or threats of violence, usually against a female partner.
Lenz makes a compelling, and compellingly readable, case for a wholesale reevaluation of the institutions of marriage and divorce. Our society and government make getting out of a marriage look like a hero’s journey. Lenz has written two previous books (God Land, and Belabored). Her gift for weaving stats and trends into the anecdotes from her own experience shows her mastery of narrative. She uses data, not to dazzle, but to show how common are problems in marriage. One suspects marriage may be a flawed model for intimacy and parenting.
“…the project of this book is to examine the failure of the institution of heterosexual marriage – the institution that pastors laud from the pulpit, and politicians declare will save our country and our children.”
Her own marriage was marked by loneliness, her husband’s unwillingness to pull his weight in household chores, and his unexamined and misplaced self-confidence in fields that were not his area of expertise. To be diplomatic. Now, Lenz is a proud liberal. Her husband was not. If you think she just needs to meet some nice liberal feminist man . . . well, she has. It didn’t go well. Those are some of the most jaw-dropping tales in the book.
Lenz shows how marriage is portrayed in history, law, culture, literature, and religion. But this is not a sociology book. The cumulative effect is that a woman may finally see why it is that she feels trapped, deprived of better options, and why understanding and empathy are hard to find. This book will be a lifeline for women who feel caught in a maze.
Some friends and family, in her experience and research, rise to the challenge, and support women trying to bring about a new, better, happier future for themselves. If you think of your marriage in terms of endurance, this book may be the alternate path you’ve been looking for - or avoiding, because you know it won’t be easy.
“Whatever brokenness waited for me, I suddenly wanted. Because this wholeness, this version of home, marriage, and family, would ruin me.”
Marriage doesn’t work for a ton of people. It’s okay if that includes you. This is a book for the married, those who plan to marry, the divorced, and friends of married and divorced people. Lyz Lenz may be the guide to lead you through – and out of – the Inferno. She makes no promise that Paradise awaits. But there are stars in the darkness. Enough to navigate by.
