She felt the shame of the truth about Ricky and their marriage, the ugliness that emerged out of what had been, she’d thought, real love. But it hadn’t been real love at all, just the illusion of love. She’d not been a good judge of who he was and what they were together, and so it felt like a failure on her part, although logically she knew that wasn’t true. “We all have something in our past that we’re not eager for people to know,” she finally said, drawing the words out. “For instance, no one in Pullman knows I’m divorced.”
Knowing the true nature of a "love" interest can be hard to see through the false realities of the outside persona. And if you don't know yourself, it's even harder.
