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My lover’s wife is sick with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, and the reason he doesn’t want to come clean is that he does not want to “cause her more pain,” which is obviously not consistent with the fact that he is fucking another woman, but there it is. That is who we are—my lover and I, and of…

By the end of February, when my Not Yet Lover came to Chicago for a conference and I picked him up at O’Hare, I got out of the car to greet him even though it was freezing, because I didn’t want to miss the chance to hug him. He was staying in our basement, which my husband and I had dubbed “The Vi…

The year you turn forty, your pretending escalates for the first time in more than a decade of slippage, and you find yourself splintering off occasionally—usually when you are alone, but sometimes with your husband too—fragmenting into your latest novel’s protagonist, Mary. It is the mania, you te…

“Why can’t you ever support me?” he sometimes screams when he is angry. You moved east to live with him; dropped out of your PhD program to follow him to Europe and then raise your children; you do almost all the child-rearing, cooking, coordination with teachers, doctors, parents of other children…

“Why can’t you ever support me?” he sometimes screams when he is angry. You moved east to live with him; dropped out of your PhD program to follow him to Europe and then raise your children; you do almost all the child-rearing, cooking, coordination with teachers, doctors, parents of other children…