The marriage was not unbearable, but it did not feel right anymore. She realized she needed to think about what she really wanted, rather than what society had taught her to think she wanted. She realized that she wasn't being the parent she wanted to be, but that it had a noble purpose. She and her ex share parenting. She wants to tell the world how it has changed her life.
Who is this woman? It could be that it's the new album by the singer, who reveals why she decided to leave her husband and what it means for their son. I didn't want to end up like a lot of other people I knew. She said in a recent interview that she would have been miserable if she had not put herself first.
Glennon Doyle, the writer who transformed from a Christian mommy-blogger into a feminist mentor, and who was hailed as her go-to emotional guru, is also the story of someone else. Oprah and Reese are both fans of Joe Biden. Elizabeth Gilbert, who starred in Eat, Pray, Love, called her the next Gloria Steinem.
In her new book, Get Untamed, she writes that she had been conditioned to believe that a good mother never hurts her children and that she doesn't break up her family. I stopped showing my children how to slowly die and instead taught them how to live. I became their model, not their martyr.
The New York Times bestselling book was published 18 months ago and was the subject of a post on the social media platform. You could say they were positive. She wrote that the book would make her soul scream. I am ready for myself after reading this book. It feels like I just flew into my body for the first time.
Many women feel trapped. I needed a life that worked for me.
The first question to ask is if she knows her superfan. In a voice that is steady and determined, she says, "Oh God, I never know how to answer this question." I will tell you that I love the singer. I am excited for her album and I see good things for her. She is a model in going off the menu and untaming, and I think the new album is about her fierceness.
It would be odd if the two women hadn't connected, given they both live in LA and that they're clearly a mutual fanclub. She moved to LA four months ago from Florida, where she had lived for many years. Why do you switch? She says that they lived in a very Trump-y area. It was ok until it wasn't. People in Florida did not believe in Covid. There is a line in Untamed that says about my marriage, why am I staying here when the doors are unlocked? I thought about why we were in Florida.
The children run between the two as Craig lives five blocks away. It sounds like Simon lives across the street from her and Angelo.
Women are everywhere in chains, but that they can free themselves by realizing they can think outside the box, and make their own decisions about how they live, who they live with, and how they behave. She is off the menu, like the example of Doyle. When you discover you have to order off-menu in one part of your existence, you realize that life's menus are not for you. She says she has to go off menu with her sexuality, faith, working life, views about gender, and mothering. I have had to go off the menu to find what I want.
She identifies with all this and has been drawn to her writing. I think what a lot of women find is themselves. Many women feel like they are trapped by gender, sexuality, and religion. You get to this point in your life when you say fuck it. I have to figure out a life that works for me because I can't please everyone.
Some readers of Untamed have criticized it for taking privilege. How many divorced women can afford to include their ex-husbands in their household caravans, as the wealthy Doyle and Adele clearly can?
She is upfront about how lucky she has been. She says she left her marriage because she had enough money in the bank to start again. I had all of the things people need and everyone should have. I read her sentence from her new book, which invites readers to record their own ideas on how to become untamed. She writes that the braver we are, the luckier we get. The luckier we are, the braver we can be, is the truth, I think. I was surprised that she agreed immediately, she said she almost cringes when she sees people reading her books. It feels like looking at your senior pic from high school when I see someone reading one of the earlier books. It is like... why? She says her life and books are continually reinvented. I write the most deeply personal things and usually the more personal it is, the more universal it seems to be.
The story at the heart of Untamed and the introduction to Get Untamed is a cracker of a tale, and is currently being developed into a TV series. When a soccer player named Wambach walked into the room, the world changed for the better. A woman is standing in a room that used to be empty. I look at her and take inventory of my life. It reminds her that society has tamed her, but that freedom is still out there. She tells her therapist that good mothers don't break their children's hearts in order to follow their own, and that she can't trust her feelings. She realized that her children don't need her to save them. My children need to watch me. Despite never having kissed a woman, she calls a woman she hasn't seen in years and tells her she loves her and is leaving Craig for her.
How does it feel to be unchained after four years of marriage?
Doing the brave thing is singular.
She says she feels like the same person. I think the biggest problem in my life is me. I am not in a relationship, religion, identity or work life that makes sense to me. In the wild, life is tough. Sometimes people think our story is Juliet and Juliet, but this is still a marriage, it still forces us to deal with our shit constantly, it's still about raising teenagers.
The story of how she left her marriage and her battle to get away from addiction are both related to the phrase "We can do hard things". Staying in a marriage long-term can be hard. I have been married to the same man for 33 years and I don't feel like a martyr. I don't feel chained, but it's certainly been. In our late 50s, we're happier than ever, and I'm sure he feels the same, because there have been times when I haven't really known why I was staying. In her own case, she feels she was a cowardice to stay in her marriage after she discovered Craig had had affairs. Sometimes it is the bravest thing to do the thing that is true to you. There is no hard thing or easy thing in life. It is a question of choosing your hard.
Get Untamed: The Journal (How to quit Pleasing and Start Living) is a book. You can buy a copy at guardianbookshop.com.
