The Gal Guide to Breaking Up Without Breaking Down: How to Say So Long to Mister Wrong

By Gabrielle St. George

We humans are desperately afraid of endings, they always seem so sad. Is there such a thing as a happy good-bye? Does separating yourself from anything sound like it could be anything less than acutely painful? Although we are wired to instinctively avoid things that we know will hurt us, that's not to

• Language: English
• Publisher: Level Best Books
• Release date: Nov 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781685120290

Gabrielle St. George

Gabrielle St. George (Aka The Ex-Whisperer) is a Canadian screenwriter and story-editor with credits on over 100 produced television shows, both in the USA and Canada. Her feature film scripts have been optioned in Hollywood. Ms. St. George writes humorous mysteries and domestic noir about subjects of which she is an expert-mostly failed relationships, hence her debut soft-boiled series, The Ex-Whisperer Files, which launches with How to Murder A Marriage. She is also the author of the non-fiction GAL GUIDE SERIES: How to Say So Long to Mr. Wrong, How to Know if He's Having an Affair, and How to Survive the Love You Hate to Love.

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Introduction

"When all your desires are distilled;

You will cast just two votes:

To love more, and be happy."

~Hafiz~

Many years ago, my girlfriend Sue threw her philandering used car salesman of a husband out of their home. (Yes, he actually was a used car salesman and had successfully sold her a lemon of a marriage). Sue was suddenly a single mother to two toddlers. A terrified, heartbroken, single mother. Sue’s own mother offered her this advice: Any man is better than no man at all. Keep him. Sue spent many sleepless nights struggling with her decision to risk the security of a marriage, albeit a bad one, and the wholeness of her family, in the pursuit of personal happiness and the better life she hoped for.

More recently when I threw my philandering snake oil salesman of a husband out of my home (yes, he actually was a snake oil salesman and had successfully sold me a fraud of a marriage), I suddenly found myself a single mother to four kids. A relieved, hopeful, single mother. My mother advised Keep your family together. No matter what you have to do.

After a two-year-long separation, during which the used car salesman racked up a lot of mileage on his stick shift, Sue followed her mother’s advice, took the cad back, tried to turn her lemon of a marriage into lemonade, and twenty years later is still married to a man who is apparently only barely, ‘better than no man at all.’

I did not follow my mother’s advice. Those well-meaning women were from a different generation where women had less choice, fewer resources, little power and suffered punishing stigma if divorced. I could not relate. Times had changed and I knew I was right to expect more, demand more, and create more from my marriage and my life. I understood that I was worthy and deserving of more from my partner. Maybe Sue did make the right decision for her. Maybe she couldn’t have survived without her fraction of a man. I was in search of wholeness in all its forms and I definitely made the right decision for me, but that’s not to say it came easily.

Rather, I tortured myself with guilt, feeling like I was detonating a nuclear bomb in the nucleus of my children’s happy home life. I wasn’t the one who had created the bomb, rather I was the bomb squad and I was exhausted from spending years running around stealthily diffusing the explosives and concealing my husband’s weapons of mass destruction from our children, friends, neighbors, the in-laws. I’d done such a stellar job that when I finally quit the thankless task of protecting everyone in my world and turned in my superhero cape, everybody was completely shocked when Dick blew our seemingly perfect world to smithereens. It wasn’t just the kids and I who were hit with the shrapnel. The breaking apart of long-term relationships can leave casualties far and wide. But remaining in a bad relationship also causes serious injuries. And oftentimes does even worse damage. I don’t believe that a slow, lingering, painful death is preferable to a quick one, if you happen to find yourself in the position where you can, or must, choose the ending to your Armageddon.

Strangely, even Dick was shocked that I’d allowed him to self-destruct. He was blindingly angry that I’d quit the team, forfeited the game and I was scared out of my mind, but at the same time, also secretly thrilled. Strewn among the smoldering ruins of my marriage, I could see the wonderful things that had survived the explosion. New life was burgeoning almost immediately. The fresh, green growth of possibility, potential, and freedom was pushing through the cracks in the worn concrete of my old life. Hope and healing lay before me and I was delirious with excitement.

Granted, there are a number of definitions of delirious. I would say I was delirious in the manner of being, in a state of wild excitement or ecstasy.

My mother, on the other hand, considered me to be delirious as in the definition of an acutely disturbed state of mind resulting from illness, illusions, and incoherence of thought and speech.

Today my friend Sue’s happiness level is, I would guess, Meh, which is arguably better than, Helllllp, but not nearly as good as Oh Yeaaaaah. My happiness level is Oh Yeaaaaah.

I have to admit the period of my life surrounding the ending of my marriage was a surreal blurring of intense emotions. It was a wild ride from captivity to freedom, from financial security to near financial ruin, from oppression to elation. It was a warp-speed roller coaster that took off from an old life that orbited around the planet We and landed in a strange new universe called Me. I didn’t just survive the ride, I thrived on it (as did my children, eventually). And I continue to do so. I