No-fault divorce? More like, Everyone’s Fault divorce. Fifty years later, the language on my own settlement did not say “irreconcilable differences,” but “irretrievable differences.” It was as if our love was something we’d dropped down a storm drain, and we couldn’t reach in far enough to get it back. No one’s hands were clean. The rise of the no-fault divorce suggested that you didn’t need a justification for ending a marriage beyond the desire to be happier. There was still a waft of shame around saying this directly—that my reason was wanting to be happier. His anger was a more legible
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