Around this time last year, my marriage was in a tough place.
I didn’t know what to do or how I was going to fix it. Separation didn’t feel like an option. Parents of small children aren’t supposed to get divorced.
Desperate to think of anything but the crumbling remains of my 8-year relationship, I become obsessed with thoughts of another man. We’ll call him Tormund Giantsbane. (Not his real name 😉)
Thoughts of Tormund Giantsbane were so relentless that I called my bestie for help.
“SOS! Why is my brain doing this?!” I asked her. “All I can think about is how much better my life would be with Tormund Giantsbane. Please help me make these thoughts go away.”
Being a good friend and knowing my goal was to stay married, she explained that this was just my brain trying to wiggle its way free from a hard situation. I knew she was right.
But I knew that I was right too.
The truth is, this wasn’t my first imaginary affair with Tormund Giantsbane. It had been carrying on for years. We’d stayed up many imaginary nights having wild, imaginary sex, followed by deep, imaginary conversations about the sorts of things I could never talk about with my real-life husband.
It was a dream wrapped inside a dream, tucked inside a nightmare.
I didn’t really know this man. I’d met him a handful of times. I knew his company was doing well, that he skied a lot, and that his gaze was like a tractor beam, uniquely designed to draw me in.
Let’s fast-forward to the current day.
It would take an entire novel to share the love story of Tarzan Kay and Tormund Giantsbane, and honestly, I might write that novel one day. I fell asleep beside him the other day thinking to myself, I can’t believe anyone in the whole world has ever been this lucky. How many people live their whole lives and never get to feel this way?
Part of me wants to segue into a business lesson about, “If you can dream it you can build it, no matter how impossible it seems” and there’s probably something there. But for today, I’m going to let this be a love story.
I spoke with a friend last week who lives part-time in a cabin on the Yellowstone River. “My wife hates me,” he told me. “That’s why I come here.”
I hope he’s reading this email and I hope he gets divorced. It will cost him half his money but I promise you, he’ll be fine. He will make more of it. People will get hurt. His daughter will probably be mad at him. But eventually, they will forgive him because fundamentally, we all deserve to be loved.
Divorce is the fuckin’ worst. It is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my whole life. I have never felt stretched so thin, pushed so hard, and out of my depth, ever. When people ask me, “How are you,” my response is often, “I’m standing upright, so it’s a good day.”
Love, on the other hand, is the fuckin’ best. It is worth doing the hard thing for. I will go to war to feel this way, again and again, for as long as it takes.
Tormund Giantsbane, you are totally worth it.
XOT