Do You Ever Really Know Your Spouse?

Turns out, James could be petty as well as cold. As Belle goes through the process of grief and healing, she realizes that his fixation on money was born from fear — his own father had a breakdown and lost his family’s money.

This leaves the reader (and Belle, too) wondering: why didn’t she notice this before or ask James about his fears? What is intimacy anyway?

Dr. Sherrie Campbell, a nationally renowned clinical psychologist, talks about a phenomenon she calls “the low-effort family” — a dynamic that emphasizes keeping up appearances over revealing emotions.

“If a marriage functions more like a performance than a partnership, you can live beside someone for decades and still feel like a stranger when the curtain drops,” Campbell told me.

In low-effort families, conversations are transactional and superficial. Conflict is swept under the rug. Problems are rarely resolved.

All may seem well…but trouble simmers under the surface.

Near the end of the book, Belle describes looking at the movies her husband had made of their family every year for 15 years, an idyllic portrait of how their children grew.

She notes how happy everyone looks, even James, and writes: “This is the gift of an abrupt departure, an exit with no lead-up or warning. He didn’t infect our lives with discord, with bickering, with visible discontent before he left. He kept it lovely until he blew it up.”

But how lovely was it really?

My ex-husband poured out his discontent like morning coffee. He was easily upset — by me, our kids, editors at the newspaper where we both worked. Exasperation and outrage were part of his image as an artist. He once titled an exhibit of his work “Blue in the Face.” He’s also the funniest and most creative person I’ve ever met.

Both family styles — low effort and high volume — can be dysfunctional, psychologist Campbell says. And Belle’s husband didn’t suddenly become another person. She just had not noticed slight changes.

“Most people are not blindsided by a completely different person. They are blindsided by a pattern they minimized,” Campbell said. “In low effort family systems, connection is transactional. As long as roles are being fulfilled and conflict is avoided, deeper conversations never happen. Over time, you can know someone’s habits, preferences, even their basic routines, but still not truly know their internal, emotional world.

“When a spouse suddenly leaves, it’s shockingly painful,” she continued. “However, most often there were subtle clues all along such as emotional withdrawal, avoidance of deep and meaningful dialogue and a stubborn reluctance to repair conflict.” 

Belle reveals that her upbringing contributed to the socially choreographed way she and James behaved. With time and therapy and long walks, she comes to realize life is always untidy and uncertain, and feelings require us to notice and really feel them.

Our brilliant disguises often get in the way of knowing ourselves and those we love, author David Brooks writes in his book How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.

“Intimacy requires moving beyond superficial interactions to understand the ‘inner life’ of another,” he writes. Intimacy requires asking deep and open-ended questions. For example, “what are you loving now?” or “what was that experience like?” or, simply, “why?” Intimacy requires listening to understand, not to judge.

These are all skills that can be learned, Brooks writes. Without them, without the ability to know our own hearts and the hearts of others, we are destined to be strangers.

In the end, heartbreak opened both me and Belle to more joyful and free lives.

My husband was colorful. Her husband was contained. Mine never pretended to be happy when he wasn’t. Hers kept up his performance until he snapped. I was surprised by my husband’s decisive dumping, but only in the timing. As in Belle’s case, there was another woman involved.

I saw myself in Belle’s transformation. After my divorce, I became a more empathetic person, a gentler and kinder person — as if I had dropped my armor.

Belle’s courage in writing the painful truth has strengthened her relationships and deepened her dreams for her children.

“I hope they will move toward people who are in pain rather than away,” she writes. “I hope because I was open about what happened to me, my children will insist on intimacy, on knowing their partners deeply, on being known deeply.”