“This Story Will Change” with Elizabeth Crane

Elizabeth Crane didn’t want to get divorced, but her husband did. Thus, her memoir, This Story Will Change: After the Happily Ever After, was born — a book about the death of a marriage, the start of a new life and everything in between.

Elizabeth joins Nora to talk about how her views on marriage have changed, what propelled her to write through the sadness, anger and grief, and where her story stands today.

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The episode transcript can be found here.

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This transcript is subject to change and is therefore not in its final form.

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I am possibly BEST known for a TED talk I gave a few years ago called we don’t move on from grief, we move forward with it. When I was writing it and working with the team at TED, I was desperate to get across that there is more to grief than just death. If you’ve listened to this podcast for any amount of time, you know that we believe that. That grief is about loss of all kinds. That we do not have a yardstick for suffering, a special scale to place our hurt on that will tell us whose is the worst. We say if it’s heavy for you, it’s heavy. If it hurts you, it hurts. If it burns you, it’s hot. 

I believe that grief and loss change us in many ways. Sometimes, it closes us up. We wrap ourselves around our suffering like Gollum and his ring. Ours is the most precious, the shiniest. It is ours alone. And sometimes, it opens us up. We can see loss in others, count the cost that they might not yet have tallied. That’s why many people listen to this show: to see themselves in stories they haven’t lived yet, stories that they may never live.

This is why I love to read. This is why I love to read nonfiction. I love to slip inside the life of another person, to see an experience through the eyes of another person. 

When I was writing my TED talk, people I love were going through a divorce. Several people I love have since divorced. The pain was different, but it wasn’t any lighter than the loss of my husband. I was watching the unwinding of lives that had braided together. Not just last names and bank accounts but inside jokes and emergency contacts, vacation plans and retirement plans.

I was watching people who had loved each other, who still had love for each other, go from being a couple, a partnership, a promise…to being a memory. And I wanted these people to know that I saw their grief, and I didn’t think of it as any less real than mine. The lines I wrote about that ended up getting cut, so I try to say it as often and as loudly and as publicly as I can: that it counts. Your loss. Your grief.

Not every divorce is a cause for grief. I’ve met people who ended their marriage with a celebration, people who ended theirs with a handshake. I’ve met people whose divorce was the single greatest tragedy of their life so far, and people for whom divorce was just a flip, a footnote. 

Because like any loss, as universal as some elements may be, they are as unique as the people living them. 

I’m Nora McInerny, and this is the Terrible Reading Club. And today’s book is about divorce.

But before we can get into it…the dog needs some treats. 

Nora: [00:00:32] What kind of a dog is it? [00:00:33][0.9]

Betsy: [00:00:33] Is a Catahoula leopard dog. Do you know about those? No. [00:00:40][7.1]

Nora: [00:00:41] Because you made them up. [00:00:42][0.9]

Betsy: [00:00:43] It is a little bit of a unicorn. She has blue eyes. And like white and pink and brown spots, it's the Louisiana. [00:00:53][10.2]

Nora: [00:00:55] That if you drew a dog. I would just draw that dog. [00:00:57][1.7]

Betsy: [00:00:57] I know [00:00:57][0.5]

[21.5] –Note to Megan…lots of crosstalk here.

That’s today’s author, Elizabeth Crane. I picked up her book, This Story Will Change, the way I pick up many books: knowing nothing about it’s contents. It is a memoir of divorce, told in small scenes, some as short as just a sentence or two.

Elizabeth’s divorce was not her choice. She met her ex-husband when she was 40, and he was 13 years her junior. Their relationship lasted 15 years. And the book is not a cataloging of all of his faults, but to me, an honest exploration of the life and death of a relationship.

Once her dog has treats, we’re ready to talk.

Betsy: [00:02:28] Where did you how did you find out about my book? [00:02:30][2.6]

Nora: [00:02:31] It it. It was on the front table at Changing Hands. [00:02:34][3.3]

Betsy: [00:02:35] Bookstore booksellers, man. [00:02:36][1.5]

Nora: [00:02:37] Yeah. Which is my local bookstore. And I said, after the happily ever after, I had no idea what that would mean. I picked it up when somebody who I love was going through a divorce that she didn't choose. And in fact, I would say the a quite a large number. And I had to text my husband and say, like, I'm on an interview right now. Could you stop speaking of divorce? And he is a former divorced person, so he loves when I joke about it, he finds it so funny. But I, I read it when so many women in my life were going through huge divorces, breakups, separations that they did not choose, that were very disorienting to them and very disorienting to the people around them. And I have bought this book for them. I bought this book for other people in my life who have not been through this. [00:03:43][66.2]

Nora: [00:05:26] I loved your book. I love the title. I love that the promise. [00:05:30][3.9]

Betsy: [00:05:31] Of the. [00:05:33][1.4]

Nora: [00:05:33] Story is also the promise of of life, which is that it will change. It will change. [00:05:40][7.2]

As promised, the story does change, just like every story and every person. In this episode you’ll hear excerpts of Elizabeth’s audiobook, and parts of our conversation.

MUSIC

Nora: [00:05:54] before marriage. What was the story of Elizabeth? [00:05:58][3.6]

Betsy: [00:06:36] You know, I was 40 when we met and we got married in a year after that, and. I think my ideas about marriage and what that was and what I wanted from it had evolved so wildly from what I thought it was supposed to be when I was a kid, or even when I was in my twenties, when I was kind of figuring. I mean, I don't know that I figured anything out in my twenties, but, you know, on my way to becoming a an adult who functioned in the world and by the time so by the time that he and I met, I had I had like really begun to have a full life in and of, you know, like I was writing, I was teaching, quit drinking. [00:07:28][51.4]

Betsy: [00:17:01] I'm a slow learner. You know, I. I just. You know, like I. I will make the same mistake a number of times before I learn. I'm going to I'm going to really be like, beat a mistake into the ground before, you know, I, I was so single and I dated a fair amount, but I was someone who could see red flags or like, you know, I would complain that I couldn't see signs. I was dating someone. So in my early thirties, I was dating someone who liked him a lot. I barely knew we were dating for a couple of months. I was on my way to a date and like my friends would always get signs and things that were like, whatever kind of signs from the universe. I'm like, I don't get signs. But I was walking up 86th Street, I still remember, and there was a there was a street, a road sign, a road repair sign, and it was very low to the ground. So it looked so extra huge and it said rough road ahead. And I was on my way to this date with this guy. And it was it was a challenging few months that we spent together. And we didn't even live in the same city and there were just red flags up the wazoo. I always saw the red flags. I always ignored the red flags. I'm just like, okay, maybe this won't work out, but I'll have fun on the ride. And yeah. [00:20:01][180.3]

Nora: [00:20:03] Sometimes a red flag looks more just like décor.You know? Oh, yes. Yeah. So, you know, mistakes were made until I mean, I really was like it was several years before Ben, when I made the last of one of those mistakes that I was just like, I'm done and waiting for the one, whatever that means. Or a one, but like the one. When you meet the husband. What tells you. Like, what about the husband says to you at the time? Yeah, let's do this. [00:20:56][16.7]

Betsy: [00:21:27] He was significant. You know, he was 13, 13 and a half years younger than me. Like, that's just that's like I knew at 40 what it meant to. I didn't I haven't forgotten what it meant to be 27 and, and what I had learned in that meantime. And so in terms of things changing, I'm like, it's like no matter how much in love this guy with me, this guy is, which I knew he was. I don't know that he's going to feel this way in ten years. You know, when I don't have the same face or whatever, you know. And but I will say this. It was very easy with him. He showed up. You know, we had things in common. We thought we had plenty of things in common. So that's, you know, you hope those things are in place. We shared values. For the most part, I think both. You know, he was an artist. We had mutual friends and. A sort of foundational principles of life that we could use to move through things. But basically it was really easy. I never had any. Like, this was one of the big differences with him or anybody else. I never worried that he would call. I never obsessed about when should I call? Like all that obsessive stuff like went away and was just like, I like this guy. He's like, he just, like, shows up and he calls, like, before I even have thought, like, is he going to call or am I going to of a you know, and. It was it was surprisingly easy. It was like what? My theoretical idea of what a relationship should be like because I had ideas. [00:23:06][99.4]

Nora: [00:23:07] Yeah. And then yeah, and then it happened. I like, you know, honestly, like the age difference I married. I'm two for two marrying guys who are 3 to 4 years older than me and who were also so easy. Never, never wondered, never worried. And I was so used to, like tapping, you know, like that book. Are you. Are you my mother? I did that. But like. Like are you my boyfriend? [00:23:35][27.2]You give  you. Shit about me. Oh, you wouldn't care if I literally died of cholera in front of you. You wouldn't care, right? Okay. And and and. And definitely helps to have one come along where it's not like that to point out that it shouldn't be like that. Right. Like, you can look back and say, like, why did I. Why? Why was I thinking that that guy would come around when it's so obvious that he wasn't going to come around like, this guy loves me, you know? And I didn't doubt that all the way. I never doubted that all the way through our marriage, you know? Yeah. What did it mean? For you to. Be married for you to enter this marriage. You know. [00:24:21][8.9]

Betsy: [00:24:22] It was something that I constantly was thinking about. Like. Like from the time that we sort of got engaged. And then at least in the earlier part of our marriage. I became much more interested in what marriage was and what what, what I wanted it to be. You know, and I especially I still kind of spend a lot of time wondering what other people's relationships are like. But beyond the sense of, like, anything that you could tell me about yours, like, like I know that I'll only know so much about your relationship unless I suddenly I'm like, inside your brain, you know, or both of your brains and. Or or, you know, maybe you could get a closer glimpse if you're in someone's house with them and you see how they move around and how they interact with each other. Share space. But I so I was sort of constantly thinking about like. You know, we used to joke that we were like winning marriage because we thought we were so, like, communicative and, you know, we were reasonable with each other. And I think those things are important. I would do a lot of the same things again if I ever got married again, which I'm not going to. But, um, but I, I can't say that. I have no idea. But I, I was kind of thinking like. I certainly always thought like, recognize that the way that I was doing it was probably less traditional than most, even though it had some very kind of ultimately traditional kind of looking components. You know. I remember my dad saying something to the effect of nobody knows about a relationship except the people who are in it. And even then they only know their house. It's so true. And so true. Yeah. Which is probably why I'm sitting here five years later, still trying to figure out what what happened. [00:30:28][6.0]

Nora: The most common question after someone loses their husband to death is how did he die? The most common question, I imagine, when you get a divorce is what happened. And the crux of both of those questions and I don't say this ungenerous I say this with understanding is how can I make sure it doesn't happen to me? [00:31:03][32.8]

Betsy: [00:31:04] I mean, that's that would be where I was coming from, you know, and thinking about that. And yeah, and there was something kind of tangential to one of those questions that I was thinking about. Oh, well, just that in our case, like. Not that we were like clearly something. There were things going wrong, you know, I think. But. But people thought we were really solid, you know? So it was the question what happened was not apparent to most people that that new me that asked, you know, because it was so sudden and and you know, we we were not in a terrible place. You know, we were in a 15-year place, you know. Yeah. [00:32:03][59.1]

Page 56: She started to make the bed wrong. Maybe she always had. It botheredf him now. The fitted sheet always came up at the typo. I can’t reach down there any better, she said. Just try, he said. I am trying, she said.

Nora: [00:32:04] Yeah. And I think, you know, the other subtext between those questions or any question about, you know, what happened is really like whose fault is it? And there. Are. Things that you write about. Obviously, there was. You know, I mean, infidelity, right? That is. Emotional now. Right? Yeah. [00:32:27][0.3]

Betsy: [00:32:27] Oh, yeah. Oh, I really it doesn't it feels only marginally better that. Parts didn't go into other parts, let's put it that way. I will say right now for the record, and I've said this to Matthew, who I am married to. Wouldn't love if you cheated on me physically. If you told another woman your feelings, your thoughts. I cannot think of anything that would hurt me more. I really can't. That's exactly right. That that is what was happening, you know, And also she was cooking for him. [00:33:03][5.7]

Nora: [00:33:07] And I do think you know in our in our most. Human form, right when we're trying to sort of like count up and like way in measure what happened. Whose fault is it? Like, you could leave it there. But I really do think that the. The effectiveness of your book is in the exploration. Beyond just that and in truly trying to find the answer to what happened. [00:33:37][30.3]

Betsy: [00:33:38] Yes, thank you. I mean, that is that is the core of what it's about and what my experience was and somewhat continue continues to be definitely, you know, as time goes on, you sort of like are more willing to see different things. But it it's interesting, you know, you listen to people who go through break ups. And I, too, there were a lot of people splitting up around the same time I did. And some were a little ahead of me. Some were a little behind me. And and and more than a couple of them were sort of like, very clear. Like the guy did this. I'm done. End of story. And. Yes. There's no question that my ex made the choice for us essentially to end the marriage largely because he saw this shiny object. Right. But I like and and that's like I can see that. But it's never going to be that simple for me. And furthermore, I am a person who kind of one of my guiding things is accountability. You know, I it's really important to me, like, even if I had done all this soul searching and come up with nothing, no, it really was his fault. At least I would know that I looked at my story, you know, and and in looking at my side of the street, you know, and so I'm like, I hope that a good bit of this is in the book. There are things that I did not communicate well to him, you know, and things that I said that were okay, that maybe were okay, but were. Maybe shouldn't have been. Okay. You know, I mean, that's gray and not specific, but. You know, it's just like. Those kind of day to day things that kind of accumulate. And this is where you get into the 15 year thing, right? You know, it's just like actually there's everything is in the book. I mean, all those things are in the book, you know, the sort of like looking at the money, I mean, you know, like saying, you know, like with a certain tone or showing up late to the airport, like those are not reasons to end a marriage, but they are things to sort of try to continue to have a conversation about, you know, and instead, I would just tend to do this Al-Anon sort of thing where I'd be like, all right, this is about him and it's not about me. And it's, you know, I can't change him. [00:36:13][154.5]

MUSIC

Page 31: I need you to know that I loved him. I need you to know why I loved him. I need you to know all of the reasons I loved him. I need me to know why I loved him. I need you to know that I stayed for fifteen years for a reason. I need to know what the reason is. I need to show you all the beautiful moments. I don’t want to bore you with happy tales, I don’t want to create unhappy tales, I don’t want to only tell sad tales. I don’t want to make him into a bad guy. I don’t want to be the bad guy. I don’t want there to be any bad guy.

Nora: [00:36:15] I can't change him. So maybe I don't say anything. Or maybe I say the wrong thing. Or maybe I explode at, like, something completely unrelated, and then other things go unsaid and. It's the easiest thing in the world to sort of Monday morning quarterback something. [00:36:33][18.5]

Betsy: [00:36:34] Yeah. You know, I'd be like what I should. Absolutely.  Or. Yeah. Or to, like, do it to somebody else's marriage, too. you know, it's this weird balance of like, I really do think we did our best at the time and that we still could have done better. Like, both of those things seem true to me. [00:37:19][33.6]

Nora: [00:37:20] Yeah. Yeah. I think I want to talk about sort of the writing choices you made because I was just so taken with the structure of the book and. I wanted to know specifically. You choose to refer to yourself in the third person to. How quickly was that choice made when you started writing a book? [00:37:46][25.4]

Betsy: You know, one of the things that I'm known to do I love to play with person. And I come from fiction. I've written written like a lot like only fiction prior to this. Certainly autobiographical to some extent, but. I. So I have had a longstanding habit of reworking entire stories. The from the person shifting first, second, third or third person plural, which is one of my favorite things to do. And. So as I was writing, I mean, you know, I started writing this not knowing that it would turn into anything. I started writing this just months after he moved out. You know, I was just like, deep in that sadness and confusion. And I really was just writing it to see like, well, maybe I can. Like, if I write down my whole marriage, figure out what happened. And so it wasn't until, like some of those pieces started to come out. It's like, Oh, this writing isn't terrible that I started thinking more about, like, which because it does, it does shift a little bit. There's some first person and you know, even though it's mostly third, I would say. So So it really was like it was a lot in the revision process. And, and even after the point at which I got with my editor, we, you know, we talked about that some, but it really was just part of it, honestly. It was just like, does this sound better in third than it does in first? Yeah, I don't know why. Maybe it seemed more literary or more interesting, you know? [00:39:38][111.6]

Nora: [00:39:40] Yeah. I also feel like it gives a reader a sense of. I think. The chaos of grief, which is what you're experiencing in this case. And it is a huge loss. And when you're in it. It's like. There are moments where you feel like you're in the eye of the tornado, but you can still see. The gusts, sort of picking up pieces of your life, like those cartoons where it's like a shoe, a bed, you know? And then. And then there are moments where you're the one being spun, you know, and I. Love that in a book. I really do. I love a book that is not purely. A linear sense because we experience time linearly, but we don't we don't revisit it that way. We don't. 

Betsy: Yes. And that and that's another thing that got shifted. All the pieces got, you know, I mean, it was never written chronologically anyway, but the pieces were moved around and moved around and moved around again. Yeah.[00:40:56][13.6]

Page 103. Is this story even true? It’s meant to be true. Maybe this story is only as true as it feels to you. Does this story feel true to you? Then it’s true.

Nora: [00:50:18] I do want to talk about just sort of like our cultural. Attitude around divorce, too, which is it's a failure. Which you wrote about. It's a failure. You failed to meet the that you failed to meet the terms of your contract. It is also, on the other hand, in my experience, it is sort of a. Grief. That doesn't count to a lot of people, right? I mean, this is one of the things that I appreciate so much about your voice on grief in general, is that you that you seem to really understand that it isn't just limited to like loss of life, you know, and. I went on this retreat that my friend had and, and there were a number of women there and a lot of the grief retreat. But there were there were a number of women there who had very recently been through these profound losses, young husbands, children. You know. So I of course, I'm like, I'm like, babbling through this whole thing because I'm like, newly separated and I'm listening to these women, you know, I'm like, Fuck is wrong with me, you know? And but. They straight up told me because some of those women had been divorced also. And they're like. Because I never used the word grief at that time, you know, and because I know what grief of a person was, you know, a dead person. Two dead people, many, many more than two of, And that's depressed, but more more than the average. Okay. [00:52:31][2.7]

Betsy: [00:52:31] I have two dead parents behind me at that point, you know. And so I understood the difference between the experience like this person was alive. You know, that makes it complicated in a different way. And when you hear these other losses that are so, you know, brutal, I would just be like, I feel like an idiot. And several of them said to me, I know. Like what? Like in actual words, like what you're going through is grief. You know, I like I want to cry even just saying that now, all these years later. Because. Like that. Like instead of making me feel ashamed of my feelings about it, like I like it, I just felt so like, not alone, you know, like, understood and loved and supported. And and so that's allowed me to from that point forward to really say, like. To understand. Like when? Because when I think about the loss of my mom, like, that was such a significant loss because we were so tied up. And, you know, my feelings about her were so. Complex. You know, I loved her and she made me nuts. And. And she died. And with this person, you know, it wasn't like it was a different relationship, was a marital relationship. And he's still here. So I should this shouldn't be this shouldn't be like, you know, these feelings shouldn't be these circumstances shouldn't be, you know, And but they are. They just are. So what is what is a good word to describe that experience of of the loss of marriage, grief. It's grief. [00:54:19][107.2]

Nora: [00:55:14] You know, there's still so many ties between you and the now ex-husband. How do you. I think you wrote about it very respectfully. I want to say that. How do you navigate that? The writing of anything that intersects with another person's life and experience and maintain even a strange relationship at times. Yeah. [00:55:44][29.5]

Betsy: [00:55:44] So that's that's a question that comes up a lot. And in teaching, right. And even fiction or nonfiction, which I take both. But you know, and I think that's a question that different people are going to answer differently depending on many factors. Right. Are you still in relationship with the person? Do you still care about the person? Like, do you you know, or you know, there could be there's not necessarily a right answer. But I will say this, that especially when I wrote it, i. I. I wasn't even. I thought maybe we'll get back together, you know? So I wasn't like. And I wasn't I would never have wanted to write an exposé, you know, or whatever. Like, here's my, like, my terrible like my terrible husband by Betsy Crane. You know, I wanted the reader to know that I loved him, and I. And I didn't want to make things difficult for him, but. So. So in the in, in this particular case, I. I let him read it, and I wasn't like letting him read it til, like, sign off, you know? But it was important to me that, like, he knew what was going on. And, you know, even from just the beginning when we were sort of went to marriage counseling, I was like, you know, I'm going to write about this. Right? Like, that was before. Like that was before. I like things really went to hell. And I, I, I wrote out of complete insanity. But, but he was like, Oh, yeah, I know. You know, And, and he was he could not have been cooler about it. I've been so, so lucky in that way. Like, whatever kind of conflict we still have that was not, that was not problematic. [00:57:31][106.7]

Nora: [00:57:33] What do you tell your students about writing their stories when the people in their stories have their own versions and are still alive?You know, there's there's a few things to do. The first thing I say is just write it. Just write it. You don't have to publish it. You're like, That's not the end all. Be all goal necessarily. I understand that That's that's a reasonable goal. But it's not. It's not the end all, be all. And it certainly wasn't with this. You know, I really I was I was well into it when I realized that it could be publishable. But I think. I think particularly with personal stories, it can be really important to. Right. It just right. It it could be terrible, but just write it. And as you go back and craft it and all of that stuff, you know, then you can decide, okay, am I willing to take what goes along with putting this out into the world, you know, including the people that are involved, you know, and. You know. It's but and also I think too, there's sort of like if someone's writing about trauma and specifically about trauma, that's something that I wouldn't necessarily like. Yeah, jump right in. Like, you know, those are things you have to like. Do you have a therapist? Do you have like a way to a support system? Like, are there ways for you to navigate taking care of yourself while you write this painful thing?

Nora: [01:00:23] The story will change and the story does change. How has this story changed you? [01:00:30][6.9]

Betsy: [01:00:32] Well, so many ways, you know, like this. I mean, I've I've gotten through it, right? Like my and I have to say, like in those early days, I you know, you talked about hope earlier. And I, I felt really hopeless when when my marriage ended right at the beginning and. And I'm a hopeful person, I have to say, like, I'm not like I don't have rose colored glasses at all, but I'm I like to say my glasses 51% full, you know, like I can see that it's, you know, what the reality is. But I, I feel hopeful. You know, I have reasons to get up in the morning. But back then, summer of 2018, I was not sure that I was ever going to like. Experience my life in the same kind of way with that kind of attitude. And so that has that. It's not quite like that now. You know, I still have a lot of feelings around the whole thing, but, um, you know, and thank God for my friends and my support system. You know, I called people all day, every day, and they, you know, they reminded me like they made me laugh and they held my hand [01:01:51][79.1]

Page 31: I need to do the math of my marriage and I need for it to add up to something that makes sense. Perhaps I need a ledger. I need for the good column to be longer than the bad, I need to see the marriage totals in front of me, I need for there to be accounting. I need to believe the people who tell me I didn’t waste fifteen years, that ends and failures aren’t the same thing.

Endings are not failures. They are, sometimes, just endings. Not every relationship is built to last a lifetime. Not every relationship can. 

There is a line in Elizabeth’s book that I highlighted. She’s just returned from that retreat she talked about, and writes this line:

“She’s still in her grief when she leaves. She’s still in her grief now. She doesn’t go from sad to not sad. She just goes.”

We all just go. The story changes. And the story changes us. We don’t move on, we move forward. Slowly. Painfully. We go. On and on and on…we go. 

OUTRO MUSIC 

CREDITS