When my husband and I were in the early stages of our separation, I found myself rattled by a sharp, sudden, pang of adoration that momentarily eclipsed the depths of loneliness I had been consumed by. For several weeks, I had been living outside of the home we owned together, staying with friends and family and using a suitcase as a chest of drawers. I was oscillating between feeling Empowered! Liberated! And utterly ridiculous for throwing away a good thing. 

The decision was mine, and on the whole, it felt right. The foundation of our relationship had accrued a thousand tiny splinters in the form of small bids turned away from. To an outside observer though, and on our best days even to ourselves, we seemed really happy. Three days before the split, we had hosted friends for dinner. Hosting is an area in which we shine: I cook, he cleans; we both aim to dazzle our guests with playful banter as jazz pours from the speakers. “Oh, stop that, it’s nothing,” we take turns saying as friends marvel at the cheeseboard and how we could just “throw this all together” on a weeknight. The last year of our marriage was sustained by nights like that one, for a few hours the space we occupied together was glittered with the distinct iridescent warmth that makes a house a home. I used to dread the silence that followed goodbye hugs and the lock of the deadbolt. Sonos clicked off abruptly, hum of the dishwasher, a curt “goodnight” and lights out. Strangers again. Many friends and family members felt blindsided by the decision, both because they only saw us at our best, and because our story was something we were all deeply attached to. 

We fell in love in middle school, and stayed in love until college. Then, we tried it apart. John was in a serious relationship, and as he likes to put it I “left a trail of bodies.” We found our way back to one another as adults. I have been cleaved to this man for more than half of my life, and for what we lack in intimacy, he makes up for in stability. He is steady, which is what brought me back to him in the first place. He meticulously takes care of things. He is organized and dedicated. He makes contingency plans for everything in our lives. He saves the original boxes to every appliance and electronic we own, so when the time comes to move, we will have a box and packing supplies ready to go. So you can understand our attraction to one another, I once tossed the contents of an entire “junk draw” into the trash, only to later realize that was where I was safely storing every valid document proving my identity.  My car is so filthy that on two separate occasions I opened the door to find fruit flies had hatched. My husband’s compulsory care stems from his anxiety and my continuous cycle of “letting things pile up until they’re unmanageable and take the nuclear option,” John’s words, stems from poorly managed ADHD. 

These ways of navigating life can present as a super power or a kryptonite depending on the scenario, and we’ve worked on balancing, appreciating, and giving resolve to one another’s code of conduct for sixteen years. Our separation was the nuclear option, but to be fair, we had been trying to pack and repack the same cardboard box over many moves and it was time for something new. 

On this particular day, primarily out of spite, I was working in our town’s most intimate coffee shop about ten minutes from the home we own together. The coffee shop, aptly titled The Nook, has roughly fifteen seats and you can see everyone’s every move from any one of those vantage points. The night before John and I had had an especially challenging negotiation regarding him assuming financial responsibility for the house so I could live separately indefinitely. The feelings associated with the exchange were still raw, the edge of them being sealed off by thorny scabs. What I wanted was my own space. A space that wasn’t public, wasn’t shared with my husband, and wasn’t at the mercy of someone who had taken me in recently, and while that was not my reality yet, I was certainly on my way. Thus, right around the time that I was feeling completely Empowered! Liberated! Independent! a familiar phenomenon blossomed from within: the onset of sudden and violent diarrhea. 

Soiling myself is a regular occurrence for me, people go their entire adult lives without experiencing it, but for me I’d say I replace a minimum of eight pairs of underwear every year. There’s a six or seven minute window on a good day between feeling absolutely no need to be near a bathroom, and white hot panic as I use every muscle in my body to clench together my butthole. 

Naturally, The Nook’s bathroom is centrally located so that every time it is used, fellow patrons can ensure all five of their senses are intact and in working condition. Though part of our couple’s counselling entails exercising vulnerability, it felt showy to exit the communal facilities, make direct eye contact with each and every other customer, and sit back down to clack away on my computer. So, feeling utterly ridiculous and in danger of dingleberrying the tail between my legs, a mere twelve hours after saying I wanted nothing to do with the house anymore, I called my estranged husband to ask if I could come “turn the bathroom into a crime scene.” He has a way with words, doesn’t he? And because he represents nothing to me if not safety and security, he replied, “Of course.”

Despite our radically different ways of carrying out tasks, we share a sense of humor. With the wound still exposed, and in danger of an infection, I thought it best to defuse the tension by making a joke about my brazen request on the heels of total separation, to which John replied, “From what your mother tells me you only try bathrooms of homes you’re thinking about living in so I hope you like the bathroom.” It was not until hearing that, that I had allowed myself to process the magnitude of what I was giving up. John was referencing The Potty Tour of ‘94. An anecdote from when my family toured new homes and I tried every toilet of every house we visited. My husband has been in my life for so long, he can recite stories from when I was potty training. And this was an olive branch. 

The therapist recommends sitting with feelings like this, not acting on them. Sit and see how it feels in an hour, in two days, in a week. Notice the way your body feels when you sit with it, do you feel tense? Is your heart rate low? Hold it lightly, and notice how your thoughts pass like cars. Don’t judge the thoughts. 

Admittedly, this meditation came as a struggle to us initially because we are both doers, albeit in our own ways. But, this weekend marked fourteen weeks into the separation, and as we sat on the deck of the home we still own together, building window screens for the apartment I now live in, enjoying sunshine and each other's company, we decided that we’d like to sit with it a while longer, because just that is enough.