Same Themes, Different Name

BREAKING NEWS! I’m changing the name of my Substack

I wanted to give my readers the inside scoop before this story gets picked up by all the major news outlets.

A while back, I promised my readers that “Mom, Interrupted” was not going to become a “divorce newsletter.” Divorce was what I was wading through at the time, and in many ways, as I pointed out, divorce is the ultimate interruption.

I still have no plans to turn this into a “divorce newsletter,” whatever that means. But the process of extricating myself from my marriage has gotten me thinking a whole lot about our relationships and communities, or our lack thereof. And that’s what this newsletter has truly evolved into over the years — a critical look at the social structures that organize our lives.

As one of my coworkers is fond of saying, “Relationships are everything.” We can get riled up over who said what at the White House, we can wring our hands over climate change, we can rant about the latest injustices — and we are well within reason to do all of the above — but at the end of the day, it’s the quality of the relationships in our personal lives that drive our health and well-being.

Divorce didn’t magically make all my relationships better, and it undeniably made one relationship quite a bit worse. But after I was done sinking untold hours into mind-numbing paperwork and soul-sucking negotiations, I found I had the bandwidth to pause, finally, and look around.

I was a little dazed, at first. I’d knocked myself off the treadmill and hadn’t really thought about what I’d do next. I just knew deep in my gut that I never wanted to get back on.

I still contend with the daily grind of work and parenting (or, more aptly, work and work), but without a spouse planted firmly in the center of my life, I find I can bring more energy and intention to all my relationships. And tapping into a broader network of support makes the daily grind feel a little less… grind-y. More like a hike in the woods, with challenging rock scrambles and arduous switchbacks, but also with time to rest, play, tell stories, and eat cheese sticks.

I began writing online back in 2020 after a decade of barely writing at all. Well, I wrote plenty for my paid jobs but little to nothing for myself. I had a very different vision then. I was going to write a memoir about parenting my strong-willed daughter. It was going to be funny and sweet, and I’d thread in weighty themes, like interracial marriage, modern motherhood, gender equity, and parenting in end times. I’d write online, first, just to build up enough of an audience to catch an agent’s eye from the slush pile.

I started out on Medium with this inaugural story, Reaching Mid Life During End Times: How 2020 Sunk and Saved Me, which I later re-titled The Year I Turned 40 and re-posted on Substack. It didn’t exactly “go viral,” but I was encouraged to keep going.

After years of painstakingly building an audience on Medium, I reluctantly joined The Great Migration to Substack. (I have no plans to migrate again. If Substack goes to hell, as it probably will and sort of already has, maybe it will be the kick in the pants I need to actually write a book.) For the first year and change, Substack largely ignored me.¹ Then in 2024, I started processing my marital separation out loud, and more people began paying attention.

Here’s what I’ve discovered in the years since: Marriage and the nuclear family, as the central social units around which our society organizes itself, aren’t working for most of us. Even for those of us who proclaim ourselves to be happily married. Simply put, they force us to put too much stock in a single other human. They ask two humans to play too many roles. The emotional energy most marriages demand — even so-called happy marriages — precludes us from investing energy into the richly layered social networks we need to lead fulfilling lives.

This is what I want to continue to explore. How all of us, regardless of our gender or marital status, can look beyond marriage and the nuclear family to build community and pursue more meaningful human connection. This is how we resist the status quo. This is how we claim our joy. This is how we take power from the people and forces who are hell-bent on containing and constraining us.

The name “Mom, Interrupted” no longer quite feels like it fits. Yes, I’m still interrupting narratives about modern motherhood and traditional families, but this isn’t exactly a “parenting newsletter.”

So after definitely overthinking it, I’ve decided to rename my newsletter… drumroll please…

Life Beyond Marriage

Here’s the accompanying graphic I spent way too long designing (and no, I did not ask AI for help):

I was originally going to rename the newsletter, “Life After Marriage,” but I recognize that a lot of my readers are currently in marriages, and it is not part of my agenda to inspire everyone to get divorced. I hope to inspire some people in actively abusive marriages to take the leap, along with other people in marriages that are no longer serving them. But more than anything, I hope to inspire all of us to think about how we can de-center romantic intimacy and build more interdependent, interconnected lives.

Is the sun in the graphic above kind of hokey? Yeah. But my very first story on Medium, the one linked above, ended with the hope I felt in a sunrise. Years later, it was during a sunset that I realized a chapter in my life was closing and it was time to step into the unknown. I’ve since been stunned by the brightness, warmth, and promise I’ve felt in embarking on my next chapter. And now, like a sun’s rays, I can channel my energy outward in multiple directions, rather than focusing most of it on one person in a desperate attempt to sustain him and “make” him grow.

I told you that I overthought all this.

And yes, this has been, and will be, a newsletter written primarily for women, but I deeply appreciate my readers of all genders who are on similar journeys of deconstruction. I invite you all to continue on this journey with me.

For my paying subscribers, I’d like to work more closely with you to build out our lives beyond marriage. I’m not sure yet exactly what that will look like. I don’t think most of us need more online communities in our lives, but perhaps there are some ways we can hold ourselves accountable.

To start, I’ve been noodling on an Anti-Advice Column, in which you share a relationship challenge you’re wrestling with, and I don’t give you advice. Rather, I share my own experience, strength, and hope (as they say in my recovery group) and invite other paying subscribers to do the same.

Maybe also, just for fun, a “Dear Mom” Unsolicited Advice Column for all the questions my kids never ask me.

I want to know what you’d find useful in your journey! If you’re a paying subscriber, or if you’re considering becoming one, let me know what you think of these ideas, and please offer any of your own. You can comment below or message me directly through Substack.

Our lives are full of a lot of fucking noise. I know this is just one more email or story in your inbox, but I hope it’s one that helps you cut through the noise instead of adding to it.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading, and thank you for being a reader. Let’s keep interrupting narratives, and let’s keep building life beyond marriage together.

1. I feel compelled to give a shoutout here to one of my earliest Substack readers, Rosana Francescato, who still regularly engages with my stories three years in. Thank you for not ignoring me! Your early support meant a lot.