Free Loose Diamonds by Amy Ephron

corner.
    The sentence resonated for me and still does. Things you know that you don’t want to know. Things you know that you pretend not to know . . .
    I’d had a similar conversation with a friend shortly after my first husband and I separated, in some moment of semi-despair or self-examination, the gist of which was, “Why did I stay so long? What’s wrong with me? Why wasn’t I confident enough to leave?” My friend, who’d known me for a long time and is somewhat forgiving, pragmatic, and a 20-year AA veteran, i.e., forward thinking, said, “Because you loved him, because the children were so young, and because you did.”
    It took the woman and her husband about a year to split up. She probably shouldn’t have waited, but I understand why she did.
    The staying syndrome isn’t limited to women, though; one could ask, in some cases, why men stay. For many of the same reasons: love or the memory of love, children, a healthy or unhealthy codependency, money (this relates to women, too, and can be due to an abundance or a lack of). No one really knows what it’s like to be in a relationship unless you’re one of the participants.
    Dr. Laura (Schlessinger), in one of her more appalling displays (some years before the famous n-word rant that caused her to resign), appeared on television the morning after the Eliot Spitzer rumors broke, and she blamed Silda?!! Actually saying, Governor Spitzer cheated because his wife failed “to make him feel like a man.” She added somewhat gratuitously, “I hold women accountable for tossing out perfectly good men by not treating them with the love and kindness and respect and attention they need.” Note to Dr. Laura: She didn’t toss him out. He had a personal problem. They had a personal problem. He resigned. They kept it to themselves. They’re still together. And, now he’s thinking about making a run for a Senate seat. Or he was, before he became a news anchor. I hope Dr. Laura never runs for Senate.
    But there’s another side to this, which is if you do decide to leave a relationship, if you do split up, one of you (at least) is more than likely to be single again.
    I was always certain. If I was ever single again, I’d be better at it than I was in my 20s. I like and respect most of the people I’ve dated, not all (that psychopath from the country founded for expatriate criminals comes to mind). I was convinced I would take all my life lessons and roll them into a more mature, laissez-faire, water-off-my-back attitude.
    It wasn’t true. I was just as bad at it the second time. And driving around with a shopping bag full of clothes in the car because you weren’t exactly certain where you were going to be in the morning is even more irritating if you have three kids at home you’re worried about, too. (No, I didn’t abandon them: There was always someone with them.) But there’s a certain teenage aspect to dating that doesn’t change. Will he call? Did I do something wrong? Long-distance relationships can’t work. Is there a girlfriend he forgot to tell me about in another city? What do you mean you don’t check your emails on the weekend (which could be construed as a number-one warning sign that the person you’re dating is in another relationship).
    I am violently opposed to (and terrified of) Internet dating sites. I honestly believe it’s not that hard to meet someone if you actually leave your house, answer your telephone, make yourself available at the drop of a hat, and, also, make yourself believe, while exercising due caution, that at any point, the next minute of your life could be the beginning of the rest of your life. Having said that, my present husband and I were fixed up by mutual friends. It is the closest I’ve ever come to a blind date. We talked on the phone a number of times, exchanged emails, and, as we both confessed later, looked each other up online. He later told me that he told his best friend that he only went out with me