 Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book about a happily single woman protagonist.
This American Ex-wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life, by Lyz Lenz Like her book Belabored: A Vindication of the Rights of Pregnant Women, this book is part memoir, part polemic. Sometimes, when hearing about a breakup, I want to know the other person's side. But this one starts with a jaw-dropping anecdote. Lenz's then-husband used to tease her about her "absent-mindedness," forever misplacing items (a mug, a favorite shirt, a half-finished book). Then one day, cleaning the basement, she found the box where he'd hidden those exact items. Their marriage counselor made him promise not to do it again. He did. Lenz had to face the fact that she was married to a man who didn't like her. Lenz expected life to be harder after the divorce. Instead, she found she was doing less domestic labor because she wasn't cleaning up after him. Less emotional labor because she didn't have to argue & negotiate for her needs. She didn't have to constantly soothe him and make sure he was okay. And with joint custody, he actually had to do his share of the child care (at least until he remarried, which he did quickly). She rejects the notion that divorce is always bad for children - but making it work requires exes to be able to work as a team. Lenz and her ex were a bad match, to say the least. But the issue wasn't just him individually, it was a whole raft of societal expectations: that women do the domestic labor even when they have other jobs, that they're responsible for taking care of men's feelings, and that all or most of one's emotional support come from a spouse. Throughout the book, she quotes her conversations with other women who struggle with these issues. Lenz doesn't pretend everything is perfect after the divorce, but she found peace and community, feeling less isolated and lonely than she did in a bad marriage.
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