When Women Leave Good Men
On honoring your own feelings rather than society’s expectations
My fingers were flying across my keyboard late one night after my husband and I split, hoping Google would be able to validate my seemingly tactless behavior. I searched “My husband is great and I left him,” “I left a good man, now what?,” “Am I making a mistake for leaving a good man?,” and “Why did I leave a good man?”
My eyes darted across the screen every time I pressed “enter” looking for someone — anyone — who could reassure me I wasn’t making a huge mistake. As it turns out, there aren’t a lot of childless twentysomething women on the first few pages of Google writing about divorcing their all-American college sweethearts after a half-decade of marriage. Stories about women leaving their abusive husbands filled my search results. Finally, I stumbled across an article written by a woman who left her praiseworthy husband because she felt like she had no other choice. Something wasn’t right.
As I scrolled to the end of the article to evaluate its length, hundreds of comments — the kind you can’t look away from — popped up on my screen. “Women who leave good men are selfish!” said one woman. “This woman is frivolous and is setting herself up for future regret!” said another. The vengeance from the you-can’t-leave-a-good-man commenters grew…
