It’s hard to tell the truth about a marriage. We are, most of us, loyal to our loves. Revealing all the hundreds of tiny horrors, the everyday indignities, feels disloyal. I had a friend who was a pastor’s wife who would stop any conversation that devolved into frustrations about husbands by raising her hand for silence and say, “Are you tearing him down or are you building him up?” As if speaking the truth about him refusing to wash the bathtub was worse somehow than him actually refusing to wash the bathtub. Speaking those small betrayals makes them real, makes them problems you have to deal with. Even now, I remember the tiny things I hid with little excuses or jokes. But now I want to tell as much of the truth as I can. I want to be completely honest in a way I could not be if I had stayed. Telling the truth is often a demolition project.