339: Break-Up
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Head to squarespace.com slash American for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. It's so embarrassing. I don't want to get upset. But, like, he has a car. So the last time I saw him on purpose was just in the car in front of my house. And, I don't know, it's just bad. Bad, like when you walk out of your house, you think, like, there his car was.

Yeah, I still look for it. It's crazy. Okay, now we're about a block from your house. Like in front of that building right there. This like churchy looking building. It was where we were parked when we first had the conversation when we decided we were going to be exclusive. Which was a joke. Like I don't really date around and I don't think he does either. But you know, it's kind of a big conversation.

But yeah, we were parked in the middle of that block, right where that white car is. And so, every time you walk down this street, you'll think like, "Oh, yeah, there's the spot." I don't walk down this street. I just don't. Like, I haven't even seen him for a month, you know what I mean? When I walked around Lauren's neighborhood with her, it had been two months since her boyfriend broke up with her. They'd gone up for about ten months before that. She was incredibly nice to let herself be taped in still a pretty raw state.

But even in the middle of that raw state, she was acutely aware and said herself that everything she was going through was a cliche. A cliche that she was forced to live through. That's the crazy thing about it is breaking up with someone is literally the most common thing. Like everyone you know broke up with everyone they ever dated until maybe the person they're with right now, if they're with someone right now. But when it happens to you, it feels so specific. Like...

It's, you know, I don't want to say I can't get over it, but in a flippant way, you kind of can't get over it. You're like, what? This is what's happening? It's so shocking. If I had to say one thing about Lauren, it's that she was full of feelings that completely contradicted each other, which I guess just comes with this territory. Like, she emphatically did not want him to call, but also, maybe a little bit, wanted him to call. She missed him, and she didn't want to stop thinking about him.

But she also did all this elaborate math to calculate the day that she would finally be over him and not thinking about him and with somebody else. We get to an area where she had been on walks with the ex-boyfriend. There were benches and a sidewalk promenade. I don't know, we used to just... It's not that we took a ton of walks, but we took some walks. And what happened down here? You know, I can't... I can't say that anything of substance happened. It's not like any one specific thing. It's just...

I don't know. It's just that there was an us. I know, there really was. That's the thing that's so weird. It's like, you know, you just, you put so much energy into something and then one day it's time to stop. I don't know. During a breakup, you just stare at what happened. There's a before and there's an after and you just can't believe it. Lauren says she still doesn't even understand what went wrong between her and him. And that's part of it too, so much of the time.

Well, we got the idea for today's radio show from an email that a listener sent. It says here, Dear This American Life, I'm suffering from a gut-wrenching breakup with my former boyfriend and I searched your site for shows about breakups and general heartbreak to commiserate. But to my surprise, I didn't find many stories specifically regarding the act of breaking up. I hope you consider it. A show like that would really cheer me up. And so, with that in mind, we devote our show today to breakups. Breakups.

Partly today we have an anatomy of the completely contradictory feelings that are part of a breakup. I think that's what makes it such a special and particularly cursed state. And we have stories today about people trying in some very unusual, very resourceful ways to make themselves feel better during a breakup. Key word there would be trying.

Our show today in four acts. In Act 1, Starlee Kine heads out on a breakup mission unlike any we have ever heard of. In Act 2, an 8-year-old heads out into the world to get some answers about her parents' breakup. In Act 3, a man who has turned his back on the ways of his people, his people in this case being divorce lawyers. Act 4, Nero Marco notes one possibly overlooked way to mend a broken heart, and it involves a soggy, plastic, disky thing.

You'll just have to trust me on that one. Stay with us.

This message comes from Warby Parker. If you wear glasses, you know how hard it is to find the perfect pair. But step into a Warby Parker store and you'll see it doesn't have to be. Find a Warby Parker store near you at warbyparker.com slash retail. This American Life, today's show is a rerun. Act one, Dr. Phil. When one of our regular contributors, Starlee Kine, was in the middle of getting over a breakup, she tried to feel better in a way that few people ever try and that maybe even she shouldn't have.

Here's Stirling. "Before I explain why I decided to write and record a breakup song, even though I have no musical ability and can't play an instrument of any kind, I should probably explain a bit about the breakup itself. It was only after Anthony broke up with me that all the warning signs I had missed came sharply into focus, like the time he told me he didn't like taking pictures of girlfriends because it was a downer to have those photos around once the relationship was over. I'd had a crush on him since the day we met, but he always had a girlfriend in Canada.

Then she broke up with him, and we got together. A week after that, he told me I was the one. Which, in retrospect, was probably the biggest warning sign of all. It was hands down the corniest relationship I've ever been in. And by corniest, I mean greatest. We'd pass entire evenings just complimenting each other. We took hand-holding to new heights. And we'd listen to hours and hours of music, teenager style, playing one song after another while smiling a lot. ♪

I don't quite remember how our Phil Collins phase began. I think it was one of those things that started off ironically, with Anthony lip syncing, adorably, to Against All Odds one night. But over time, it became less and less ironic, until one day we were actual fans. How can I just let you, just let you leave without a trace? And I stand here taking every breath. You're the only one who really knew me enough.

We liked how honest and sad it was. "How can I just let you walk away? Just let you leave without a trace? You're the only one who really knew me at all." We pictured Phil Collins at the piano, writing it. The tears running down his face. Anthony broke up with me on New Year's Eve. I told you, corny. I didn't really see it coming, and I definitely didn't want it to happen.

He said, you're going to be okay. I just cried and cried. I wanted to stop it, to fix it. I searched deep inside myself for the right words to say, and out of my mouth popped this. How can you just let me walk away? I'm the only one who really knew you at all. And I meant it. In fact, I go so far as to say that in that moment, no one could have conveyed how I was feeling better than Phil Collins. Take a good look at me Cause I'll still be standing here

If I thought I'd been in a Phil Collins phase before, it was nothing compared to what came next. I was no longer listening to the songs for pleasure, but for pain. They were breakup songs, and hearing them was the only thing that made me feel better. And by better, I mean worse.

There's something so satisfying about listening to sad songs. They're like how you would actually be spending your day if you were allowed to just break down and sob and grab hold of everyone you met. They make you feel less alone with your crazy thoughts. They don't judge you. In fact, they understand you. A breakup song won't ever suggest you start online dating or that you're better off without him. They tell you that you're worse without him, which is exactly what you want to hear because it's how you feel.

I didn't want to be cheered up. I didn't want to bounce back. I didn't want to meet someone new. I wanted to wallow, big time, deeply, and with the least amount of perspective possible. And the only way to do that was by turning off my phone and turning up the sad, sad music. Like this song that I love by the band The Magnetic Fields. ♪

I guess I could take a sleeping pill and sleep back well and not have to go through what I go through. I guess I should take Prozac right and just smile all night at somebody new. Somebody not too pro would try again. She'd leave this at which is just what I'd do if I wanted to but I want to get

It's great because the lyrics perfectly articulate this feeling you didn't even know you had. Then there's the Bonnie Raitt song, I Can't Make You Love Me. The song was written by Mike Reed and Alan Shamblin after they read this little article in the newspaper about a guy who'd gotten drunk and shot up his girlfriend's car. At his sentencing, he was asked if he learned any lessons from what he'd done, and he said yes. You can't make a woman love you if she don't. I can't make you love me.

Before the breakup, I had no idea how much breakup music was out there. For example, every song ever written. Or at least every third. But once you're heartbroken, you notice it everywhere. You find yourself in the supermarket, listening to a song you've heard before, but never really heard. Thinking to yourself, it's just so true. In my living heart, I don't know if I can feel it.

It's not just that you overlook the cheesiness. You embrace it. You do want to know what love is. There's nothing restrained or subtle about being crushed by the person you care most about in the world. It's big and gaudy, and so it only makes sense that songs about it are too. It was after listening to all these songs for months that I knew what I had to do. I had to write one myself.

I needed to take charge of my pain. I needed to take wallowing to the next level. It wasn't enough just to be lying on the floor in my pajamas listening to these songs at 3 in the afternoon. I wanted to be the songs. I wanted to be the pain. I wanted to be inside the stereo speakers, to be the sound waves coming into my own head. I wanted to be the thing creating the feeling I was feeling. And I knew just what kind of breakup song I would write. A torch song.

Torch songs are about the most pathetic, desperate, and lonely part of yourself. The part you'd never admit to your friends. The part of you that knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that you would take him back. Not only that, he wouldn't have to beg or even apologize. Dusty Springfield made a whole career out of these songs. I Just Can't Make It Alone, I Only Wanna Be With You, All I See Is You, Losing You, or this one, which might be the most pitiful sentiment ever uttered out loud.

It's just so pathetic. And deep down, it's how I felt too. And it felt good to have someone just come out and say it. There are some words you can never speak, but somehow you can sing. So I knew what kind of song I was going to write, but I had no idea how to go about writing it. I needed some advice. I needed some advice.

And out of thousands of musicians who write about heartbreak, there was only one I cared to talk to. Hi. Hi. Hi, Starlin. Can you hear me okay? Yeah, I can hear you great. Phil Collins, of course. What? Is that weird? I got it into my head that it'd be great to ask Phil Collins how to write a breakup song. The same way you might think to yourself, I'd really love to talk to Michael Jordan about free throws. I never thought it would actually happen.

Then, against all odds, it turned out I had a friend who was on the road with Phil Collins on his Genesis reunion tour shooting footage for the DVD extras. He gave me his contact info, and I sent him an email. Dear Mr. Collins, I have a rather unusual request. Then I waited, refreshing my inbox every three seconds. When his email finally appeared, he was friendly and casual. We set up a time to talk.

In my mind, he was already so intimately involved in my breakup that it seemed crazy that he didn't actually know about it. So I told him, well, I'm going to tell you the whole story of my breakup and stuff, okay? Is that okay? Yeah, yeah, it's your 45 minutes. Okay. Well, it also involves you. So I was dating my boyfriend, Anthony, and he kind of broke up with me.

On New Year's Eve. Oh, nice. Whereas before it was Anthony and I talking about Phil. Now it was Phil and I talking about Anthony. Actually pretty tidy when you think about it. And at one point I turned to him and it just flew out of my mouth. I just looked at him and I was like, I can't believe you're just going to let me walk away. And before long, Phil Collins and I were commiserating about heartbreak. We

Which he also went through recently. I mean, I've just been through a marriage breakup, and you talk about New Year's Eve. I mean, my divorce is final on my birthday. Oh, really? And I didn't want it at all. So that's something that, you know, you always remember these things, you know, like you'll always remember New Year's Eve, and I'll always remember my birthday. I know. It makes you want to skip those days, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. Up until this conversation, I never thought I had much in common with Phil Collins.

He started playing in Genesis at the age of 19. I didn't. He performed in Live Aid, while I only watched it on TV. He was in the movie Buster, which I never actually saw. But talking to him was easy. He told me that when he was in Genesis, he just played drums and sang. He didn't write. Against All Odds is one of the first songs he wrote himself, when he was working on his first solo album.

That song particularly was written during my first divorce. My first wife and the kids had gone, and I was just left there. So it was written totally out of experience as opposed to this is a what-if song. Yeah, yeah. Do you think you could have written that song if you hadn't gone through, if your wife hadn't left? Probably not. I mean, frankly, the...

If that personal stuff had not happened to me at that time, I probably would never have made an album. And if I was to have made an album, eventually it would have been more of a jazz rock thing because that was what I was actually... That was my output. Apart from Genesis, I was in the back of Brand X. And that's, you know, I was a player. So...

You know, no, without that stuff, I wouldn't have felt the things I felt that made me sit at a piano night after night, day after day, writing stuff, yeah. Did it help? Well, it helped in as much as, you know, it was kind of, well, when she hears this, it's all going to be okay, you know. Really? Is that what you thought? I did, yeah. Foolish, huh? But, I mean, I did. Did you get over it? There's various...

People in your life that you never quite get over. I mean, that's kind of the cliche. And then, you know, sometimes, I mean, with me, for example, because of children, you are...

You are morally obligated and you need, because of you want to be with the kids as much as possible, you have to be in touch with this person that's really hurt you. So it's not like, you know, you can just walk away and leave without a trace because, you know, in this instance, there's a couple of little guys that are looking up to you saying, what am I going to do, Dad? Okay. There are so many crazy things about this.

First of all, even Phil Collins can't help but quote Phil Collins. Second, if it hadn't been for his wife leaving him in 1979, Phil Collins would never have become Phil Collins. Heartbreak turned a jazz-rock fusion drummer into an international pop icon. But the other crazy thing was how honest and normal he was about it. Once again, Phil Collins put into words what I was feeling. There's a part of me, and it is not a small part, that wants my ex, Anthony, to hear the song I write and ask to come back.

I told Phil that I'd been trying to write my songs, but they just didn't feel right. They were too wordy or something. But when I tried to consult songs that I loved to see how it was done, even the lyrics to the best songs looked flat on the page. I wanted to know how to transform cliched sentiment into a song that captured the entire range of human emotions. I wanted to know how simple sentences like love hurts, love scars became. Love hurts, love scars.

Most of the time it's the direct. I mean, if it's a good song, that's what makes it good. It's the fact that it's, you know, so many people try to fluff things up or disguise them or, you know, make them a little bit too clever. But sometimes it's the simplest thing that actually reaches people. ♪

It actually looks corny when you look at it on the page. But then you see that's what becomes important then is the way that it's sung. Yeah. Because you get...

Otherwise you get, and I don't mean any disrespect, but you get into sort of Michael Bolton territory. And I've got nothing against Michael, I'm just using him as an example. I'm sure people would use me as an example of something that gets overblown and polished as opposed to a simple idea simply sung and obviously sounds like it's sung with conviction. So now I had the advice, I had the pain. It was time to start writing.

It was pretty terrifying at first. Every single word I put down seemed wrong. Even the ones that seemed like they had to go in, the no-brainers. I'd type the word love, then erase it, and then type it again. Then, one day I was waiting for the train, and I started thinking about how that train reminded me of Anthony. And then, how our love was sort of like a runaway train. Oh, that's good, I thought, and scribbled the line down the back of my gas bill.

Suddenly, heartbreak was flowing out of the cracks in the sidewalk, and it was up to me to transform it into a song. The next problem was, and it felt like a small problem really, was my complete lack of musical ability. So I asked a guy named Joe McGinty for some help. He's a New York musician who has played with everyone from the Ramones to Ryan Adams to Ronnie Spector. He was into psychedelic furs. He has a million songs. More importantly, for my purposes at least, Joe is a man who understands heartbreak. Here's one of his songs I really like.

This song is three weeks old Guess I should sing it Happy birthday And your image, it's still a happy accident I can't seem to shake you in my mind Hi. So I met up with Joe and also Julia Greenberg, a musician and songwriter who plays with Joe a lot.

I'd written about a dozen songs, some of them more finished than others. When I printed them out, I had six freshly typed pages of lyrics, and then about 15 crazy-looking pages, with a few lines here and there separated by random spaces. I had sent these all off to Joe and Julia before our meeting. Here's Joe reading the one I thought was farthest along.

Okay, imaginary boyfriend. I can't help but think this all could have been prevented if I'd just gone to a small liberal arts school because then I would have met my imaginary boyfriend at a stand-up comedy open mic. It was love at first eye roll. He said he drew comic books like David on Roseanne. Wow. I thought I'd been working on a song, but I don't even know how to describe what that was. A creative writing class essay, maybe. It was clear that I'd ignored Phil Collins' advice.

Keep it simple, not clever. Joe and Julia agreed. I think that, like David on Roseanne, I can't turn into a song. Then Julia pulled out her favorite of my songs from the very bottom of the stack. I had been so sure it wasn't a contender that I'd almost not included it at all. You had the lyric, it doesn't do me any good, in fact it does me bad. Then it kind of seems impossible to me that that hasn't been in a pop song before, but that's a classic kind of pop song.

You know. Yeah, that's a classic pop song line. I have to admit I was skeptical. That lyric was from the Crazy Pile. Just note for an idea I had for a Torch song. I tried to think of the most pathetic scenario I could. What I came up with was this. Anthony goes back to his ex-girlfriend. But rather than letting him go, I agree to be this awkward third wheel, as long as it means still getting to see him occasionally.

The lines were literally, I liked you, and you liked her, and I sort of liked her because you liked her. Julia had run with the idea, with one minor change. Do you know that you had it all like, and I changed it to love? That was the biggest. I feel like there's something really deeply, there's even more issues that I have to work with, out with myself, that I put like and not love. It didn't even occur to me. Julia had been so sure it was an actual song that she'd gotten to work before our meeting.

She'd sketched out a melody and sung it to Joe on his answering machine. He played it for me. Yeah, all right. This is going to be a rough rendering of the opus. ♪

I loved you and you loved her and I sort of loved her 'cause I love everything you love. And then she stops, stops loving you and glory hallelujah, somehow you start loving me and I don't know why I love you, I just do. I really do.

And it doesn't do me good, in fact it does me bad. And you're oh so gone, I'm oh so sad. So yes, in theory, I knew all this. That music was important. It transforms words, unites the universe together. But I'd never actually seen it happen in front of me. Come up with some more interesting ones. I cannot believe that's the one that you choose.

But then when you were singing it, it was like the words were like falling, flying off the page and it was like pixie dust on them or something. Like a magic spell had actually tapped it with a wand. And it makes total sense now after hearing it that that should be the one. So now the three of us had written a song about the other three of us. Over the next week, we finessed the lyrics, tweaked the melody, and recorded the song. It seemed obvious who should get the first listen. And no, I don't mean Anthony. That'd be crazy.

I mean Phil Collins. Can I play my song for you? Is that okay? I don't want to put you on the spot. No, no, no. I would like to hear it. We've been talking about it. Okay, cool. And you just be honest. Okay. Okay, here it goes. So I played him the song. I'll skip the part you've already heard and the bridge and jump right to the end. Now it's just names may have changed but the sorry facts remain the same that I love you.

And she loves you. I'm okay with second best. Just love her more and love me less. I don't know. I just do. I really do. Act it does me. Oh, God. Oh, so sad. You're oh, so sad. Oh, so sad. Well, well. There's some great stuff in there. You know, I really like...

What's the line again about doing me no good, in fact it's doing me bad? It doesn't do me any good, in fact it does me bad. Yeah, that's fantastic. Really? And afterwards, the line that says, and you're oh so gone. I laughed when I heard that. You're oh so gone and I'm oh so sad. I mean, it's just really smart. I can't believe it. That's so nice of you. It's not being nice, I just like it. I mean, I would easily have said, hey, it's not for me, you know.

I heard it, and I thought it was very funny. Thank you. Well, that's what I mean, though, about how, like I told you, I was trying to write all these crazy concepts and conceptual ideas, and then the one that seemed to work was just the one that's how I feel. Yeah. Do you think he'll come back? I hope so, because you obviously do feel a lot for him. Oh, God.

Do you think I'll ever stop feeling bad like I am now? Well, but you kind of like feeling bad, don't you? Oh, yeah. Well, it's something... I don't think you really want to get over it. I think you're kind of enjoying it. So that's kind of a dilemma you have to sort out. You really have me pegged.

It feels, like, important or big or something. Like, it feels like I felt really... Like, I felt so much for him when I was with him, and the only way to still feel, like, that strongly about something is to not let it go. I would love to be the person who is just like, he meant nothing to me. But instead, I'm the person who's like, OK, I'm going to write a breakup song and play it over the airwaves. And, you know, like, it's so... I've, like, lost all my cool. Well, I don't see it like that. Really? You're just...

addressing something you need to address. And this is getting, amongst other things, getting it out of your system. You've had the satisfaction of actually getting something tangible that you can play out of this relationship. That's true. But don't you sometimes wonder, is it better to have the song in the end or the relationship? Oh, no, it's probably better to have the relationship. Yeah, that's the problem. That you don't have the choice.

Now that the song is done, it's really hard not to wonder if Anthony is going to hear it. I'd like to say I've gone back and forth on whether I even want him to, but the truth is, of course I do. Everyone I talk to, from my best friend all the way to Phil Collins, says he'll listen. And yes, if the roles were reversed and it were me, I definitely would. But I know Anthony. If anyone could resist listening, it would be him. You're just going to have to trust me on this one. Which doesn't mean I think he'll never hear the song.

I can see him keeping a copy of it in some box stuffed with mixed tapes and copies of SAT scores so that he can listen to it one day when he's ready. I picture him 40 years from now, an old man living in some house that I'll never see, which breaks my heart. In my head, he doesn't look like a real old man, but like a young one wearing stage makeup. I imagine him sitting down to finally listen on the CD player that people make fun of him for still having. He loads it in and hits play.

He listened to the entire song from start to finish, and when it's over, he plays it again and again, until the tears are running down his face. Starleek Klein. You can hear more stories from Starleek on her podcast, Mystery Show. Coming up, a big city mayor, an eight-year-old girl, and a dog weigh in with their solutions to getting over your next breakup. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.

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It's American Life. I'm Eric Glass. Each week on our show, of course, we choose a theme, bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show, breakup, stories from inside the vortex of shockingly contradictory feelings that happen after a breakup. We've arrived at act two of our show, act two, but why? After a relationship ends, you can puzzle for years over why things went wrong and did they have to, and you yearn for a simple story that explains it. And that's not just true for the people in the relationship. It's true for the kids, too.

And now, with that thought, let's flip on the radio time machine. Reforming welfare in this half hour. This is Noah Adams. And I'm Renee Montaigne with All Things Considered. The welfare reform that they're talking about here is that of President George Herbert Walker Bush. The day that this aired, February 11th, 1987, I was one of the lower-level producers at All Things Considered.

But that day I got to work on this story about breakups that I still think about. A story about somebody who is wanting to understand a breakup and reaching out to various people out in the world to do that in a way like Star Lee did. So, OK, all you need to know is it's 1987. Edward Koch is the mayor of New York City. Noah Adams is one of the hosts of All Things Considered at the time. And he does the interview.

Betsy, tell me your full name, please. Betsy Allison Walter. Betsy Allison Walter, and you're eight years old? Almost nine. And you live in Manhattan? Mm-hmm. And you're in our studio in New York. I appreciate you taking some time to come in and telling us this story. You wrote a letter to the mayor of New York, Mayor Koch. Right. Tell me about that, please. Well, I wrote to him because my parents are getting divorced, and I really don't know who to turn to. I just told him that I was going to be a mayor.

My parents are getting divorced, and my dad is with somebody else, and I was just getting used to something, and now this, and it's really kind of hard on me, and I like an opinion. Why did you write to Mirkoch? Because he's somebody who I thought he's very good to us, I guess, because he's somebody who knows a lot of things, and I thought he would know about this, too. Did you get an answer back? Yes. What did he say? He's very short-sighted.

Thank you for the letter. I was saddened to learn of the difficult times you are experiencing now. It is important for you to share your feelings and thoughts with someone during this time. I wish there was an easy solution to these problems, but there is not. Please remember that you are loved and that people care about you all the best. Sincerely, Edward Koch. That's nice. Was that reassuring to you in a way? No. No?

Did you have any thought in your mind that perhaps he could actually do something about it? For example, call your father and get your mom and dad back together? No. No, you just wanted some advice. But see, I tried it sometimes, like, because I had a dance recital one day, and I invited them both, but I wanted them to sit next to each other, but they didn't. Yeah. What other advice have you been able to come across, to find? Well, the guidance counselor, she said that

A lot of kids have the same problems, say there are 400 in school, and like 300 of them have the same problem. Sure, sure. You know, most people you talk with will have had parents who were divorced. Oh. Yeah, most people. It's kind of a sad thing, but most people get through it all right, too.

That's my advice for you. Thank you. You wrote another letter to somebody who had written a book called The Boys and Girls Book of Divorce? Yes. A psychologist? Mm-hmm. And what did that person tell you? Well, he said that I should try another of his books to find out how. Oh, he wanted you to go out and buy his book, did you? Well, we had the one he recommended. And how did that go? What did you think of that one?

Well, the problem is he puts things in a way that I can't really quite get through me that I already know, and I want some real advice that my questions really are, not just answers that people keep telling me over and over again. Can you give me an example, Betsy? Why did they get divorced? What happened? Do you think that parents sometimes...

Don't think children are old enough to understand or can't handle it and so will hide some information? Yes. Not that they have to say everything, but you think there ought to be a little bit more sharing of the information? Yeah, that's what my mom said. Yeah. And in terms of their own divorce, do you understand it better now? No. No? Why? What still don't you understand about that? Well, why did they have to go off and do it? Because, see, the most painful part is when I saw my dad packing up and...

And I really don't understand because, like, it's hard because they won't tell me what happened to them and I really want them back together and I don't understand why they can't. Yeah. What do you think you've learned from this? Do you think if somebody else in school, for example, told you that their parents were getting divorced, how do you think you could advise them?

Well, I wrote a book, and I think I would say the same information that I said. You wrote a very small book? Yeah. Yeah. Do you have it there? Mm-hmm. Could you read some of it for me, please? All right. Let me get it. It's called A Book About Divorce. Should I read the whole book? It's short. Sure. It's not your fault when your parents get divorced. Why does it have to be you? Because Mommy and Daddy don't love each other anymore.

Remember, it's okay to be sad and cry. Tell someone about your feelings. That's it. That's nice. Listen, Betsy, thank you for talking with us. I appreciate it, and I wish you the best. I hope things go well for you. Thank you. And maybe this is the beginning of a writing experience for you, and you can grow up to be a writer. I don't want to.

But I want to write like one book that would make it, but not a whole series, you know. You just want to write a book and make a lot of money. No, not money, just famous. Okay. Okay. Okay, Betsy, thank you. Good night. Okay, good night. So that's the tape from 20 years ago. You're in the studio with us now. Tell us your name. Betsy Allison Walter. How old are you?

I just turned 29. And you're working? I am. I have been an elementary school teacher for the past seven years. How many times over the years do you think you've heard this taped interview? Probably 12, a dozen. Because I didn't hear it for a while. I think I heard it again when I was about 22, 23. Every time I've had a boyfriend, I've played it for him. And each time it's got to be different. How's it been changing for you?

Recently was the first change. Really? I used to only hear it with my exact inner monologue from when I was there in the studio. And when I heard certain things, I can still remember the exact thoughts running through my head. I remember it very clearly. I remember thinking that you were just another grown-up, you know, offering your advice. All these grown-ups kept telling me things, but I felt like I knew what they were going to say. They were going to say, it'll be okay, and people fall out of love. But that wasn't what I wanted to hear. Like, it's just...

I remember everything. It was, I don't know how. And then recently, I think it was probably when I graduated college when I heard it again, I heard it as an adult, and it was so heartbreaking. I didn't think it was sad when it was me. It was just what was going on. And it made me sad to hear pain in my voice, confusion. And now I hear it even differently as an educator. I hear it as, what would I say to her?

And looking back at that moment, did you really want the truth or did you want things to be well again and whole again? I don't believe that I wanted what the truth really was, but I wanted what I had created the truth to be in my head. I wanted them to say something to the fact that, you know, oh, we just need a time apart and of course we'll come back together. I wanted what I thought the truth was. If I had heard the real truth...

I think that it would have been devastating. Your dad was fooling around? Mm-hmm. And my mom did an amazing job of never, ever putting any blame on him, of always being supportive of us having a relationship. But if she had said the truth, I couldn't have a relationship with him. I would have been too angry. Okay, let's imagine this. Your advice just to that 8-year-old Betsy. Who was you? I do grapple with this. I...

It's hard because I know exactly what I wanted to hear when I was eight. I think I would tell her that, you know what, I would actually say, this is probably how your life is going to be. You know, your parents made this choice for you. And now, instead of questioning and wondering for so long why this choice was made, how are you going to live your life now knowing this is your life? I think

I still know myself and I would have been persistent wanting answers regardless. But I do think that I needed to feel less helpless. Well, we first broadcast today's show in 2007. Betsy Allison Walter is now Betsy New Schneider. She has now been teaching elementary school for 25 years. She has three kids of her own. Act three, let no court put us under.

Now we have this example of somebody trying to make breakups less horrible than they are. Barry Berkman used to be like any divorce lawyer. He fought for his clients. He tried to get the big settlements. But he came to believe that what he was doing actually was not so good for most of his clients, which, you know, was kind of a big problem. Here's the kind of thing he would see. Guy comes in, ready for a divorce. His wife had a lot of money.

They had worked out a deal, but they did it on their own without seeing lawyers. What would they decide? And what they decided was that in order for him, he was a musician, didn't have that much money. But in order for him to live close to her and to be able to see the kids, which they both wanted, she was going to give him enough money to purchase a small co-op. And it was great. They were both happy as could be. They were ready to do it.

They were told to see lawyers. He came to see us. We were fine with it. And we said, sure. You know, this looks good. You did a good job. She went to see a lawyer. No way. How can you give him that much? It's not right. That's what her lawyer was saying. Absolutely. For the lawyer, it was too much because he had an argument which could theoretically end up giving her life.

the greater part of her separate property. Right. She ended up listening to the lawyer. We ended up with a custody fight as well as a divorce fight. Wait, and is that because the money fight got so bitter at some point? Exactly. Really? Yeah, then they started fighting over the kids, which they hadn't fought over at all. Well, wait, how did that kick in? What was the moment where it went from being just about money to being about the kids too? What happened was the parties got so angry at each other that they started fighting

quibbling about everything. So if he had a gig and couldn't be home on time one evening, she decided he was an unfit parent. If she was spending too much time with her new boyfriend, which this guy decided wasn't appropriate, she became an unfit parent. So the parties ended up fighting not only about money, but about the kids. Used up a good bit of her vast inheritance in the case, and in the end,

She ended up buying them the same, you know, or similar co-op or in a similar neighborhood as the one she would have in the first place. But it took a couple of years and bittered everyone. And you had to think, was this worthwhile? Did it have to happen? Adversarial-style divorces make up a ton of all divorce proceedings around the country. And Barry felt like most of those cases ended up like this one. Incredibly expensive, taking a huge emotional toll on everybody. Damaging children.

So after 15 years of doing these cases like this, he started looking for a different way. And he found something called collaborative divorce. In collaborative divorce, each spouse gets a lawyer. And then the spouses and the lawyers sit down in a room together to work out some kind of agreement. But under the rules of collaborative divorce, if one of the lawyers thinks that the other side is being intransigent or unreasonable, not only can he not threaten to go to court, if it does go to court, he has to give up the case. He has to give the case to another lawyer to do.

So the lawyers have an incentive to work everything out. So, okay, they all sit down together, the spouses and the lawyers. And Barry Brickman says that even though the spouses enter this situation with good intentions of working everything out, the biggest obstacle he has is something very simple. I think often what happens is couples in conflict lose the ability to listen to each other. And so you find yourself very often saying to your own client, no, no, no, no, no, listen to what they're saying. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Not to agree with it, but at least to understand it. Right. That's the whole question. To recognize that your point of view doesn't necessarily invalidate your spouse's point of view. You're saying the most important thing people need to do is simply just listen to each other and try to get along.

I would say listen to each other. Yeah, I don't know about getting along. They don't have to try to get along. Certainly listening goes a long way. Do things get so reasonable that you get people listening to each other well enough that people eventually just get back together? I've had that happen once. What happened? What happened was we had people who simply couldn't listen to each other.

He became very, very busy in his own law practice. She felt she was losing him. Part of it was they couldn't find the time to talk to each other. But this collaborative divorce process makes you actually show up to meetings with your spouse and your lawyers and start talking. And as these two people talked, they started to see each other's side of things. Maybe he hadn't been around enough. Maybe she could have been more supportive. I think the turning point came when they were talking about what to do with the house issue.

And each one kind of recognized that they didn't really want to be living anywhere without the other person. Usually, of course, the spouses do not get back together. When the process works, Barry Berkman says, at least they end up feeling a little better about each other. So people always say at the end of this process, they appreciate your help and they're glad for the results, but they're still full of pain. Yeah, I mean...

We're not going to get rid of the pain. The pain is there. Long marriages, the pain is there. I think going through this process enables people to get in touch with that pain and the real sadness that they're experiencing, which is sometimes covered up by their anger. Are you saying that at the end of this process, actually just going through the dividing of assets, which is really in the end all you're trying to do, actually makes people's anger dissipate?

When you do it this way? I think going through the process where we reach, and it's not just the assets. The assets are usually relatively easy. Don't forget we have the kids and the parenting and decision-making, and that's often a lot tougher. I think going through the process where people reach points of understanding where maybe for the first time they get a glimpse of where the other person is coming from,

And so all of a sudden they realize, you know what? It's not necessary to demonize this person anymore. And when they have those moments of understanding, it goes a long way toward helping them get on with the rest of their lives, actually. Barry Berkman is a lawyer in New York and a member of the New York Association of Collaborative Professionals, which he helped found. Collaborative Divorce, by the way, was invented by a Minneapolis lawyer named Stuart Webb. ♪

Act four, divorce is rough. We close our show today with this vignette of just how lost you feel when you lose somebody from Meryl Marko, recorded on stage at Uncabaret in Los Angeles. Today, our friend Paul came to the house in a near dissociative state of panic. Suddenly and without warning, it appeared that his marriage was unraveling. He sat down on the big red couch in the living room and I offered him a vodka as he started detailing his anguish.

Up until yesterday, if you'd asked me if my marriage was a happy one, I would have said yes, he said, choking back tears. And then last night, out of the blue, my wife comes in and tells me she wants a divorce. As Paul spoke, Andy's dog, Puppy Boy, a skinny brown and black Tijuana Shepherd, approached with his mouth full of a large black, completely deflated soccer ball. He placed the flat, wet piece of rubber gently on Paul's knee and then sat down right in front of him to wait for the games to begin. Paul was too upset to notice."

"'She told me she wants to start seeing other men,' Paul said, tears welling up in his eyes. "'And that's not even the worst of it. "'Today I found out from friends they've already seen her around town with another guy. "'They didn't want to say anything until now.' He began to cry. And as he did, Puppy Boy attempted to apply a little additional pressure by picking up the deflated piece of rubber off Paul's knee and moving it to a new spot a little further up Paul's leg. But Paul had the bad manners to be completely preoccupied by his own tragedy.'

"I have no idea what I'm going to do," he said, as Puppy Boy moved in a little closer and began staring a little harder, his eyes going intently from the black, flat rubber thing that was now balancing on Paul's thigh to Paul's face and then back to the flat, black rubber thing, as if to help Paul out in case he was having trouble locating it. "It's been just emotionally devastating," Paul continued. "Everything I've worked for has fallen apart. And what happens to me now? Am I going to lose everything? My house, my cars, my savings?"

He broke down and began to sob, the only time I've ever seen this incredibly stoic man cry, which was a signal to Puppy Boy that the game was finally about to get going. So he picked up the deflated soccer ball off Paul's thigh and moved it to the most conveniently located spot of all, the very center of Paul's lap. Then he sat back down in front of Paul and resumed his intense staring. So he kept doing this for the whole two hours that Paul was at our house.

Later that night, after Paul had gone home to pick up the pieces of his shattered existence, I began to wonder what Puppy Boy might have to say for himself about this behavior. So I asked him. Puppy Boy replies, Hello, new seated person. I am Puppy Boy, and I can see that you are very upset for some reason, but I have something on my mind. I am going out on a limb here and tell you that it is the most important thing I have ever had to say, and it is this. I have placed a thing on you that you must throw. If you look down now, you will see it.

It is that large flat thing that is balancing on your knee. Please listen to me when I tell you that this is an opportunity you cannot pass up. By the way, you have noticed that your knee has a big flat wet thing balancing on it, haven't you? Or are you so busy sobbing and weeping and talking about yourself that you are having trouble seeing it?

Here's a hint. I'm staring at it right now. So if you can imagine a laser beam coming from my eyes and then follow it down to the spot on your leg where it is focused, it'll lead you right to it. The only other possible explanation for your puzzling lack of interest is that you are purposefully ignoring me. And why would you do that? Especially since you are really hurting yourself more than you are hurting me. Because let's face it, you're the one who's passing up a great opportunity. LAUGHTER

And by a great opportunity, I'm referring to the chance to have the kind of fun that everyone dreams of having. I speak of the chance to throw a big, flat, stretchy, wet thing. And guess where it is right now? Throw it now or live a life of regret. I mean, I can't stop you if you'd rather just listen to yourself talk. Wife, wife, wife, she did this, she did that. Really fascinating.

For Christ's sake, look into my eyes and play along. Pick up the big, flat, wet thing. Pick it up. Pick up the big, flat, wet thing. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick up the big, flat, wet thing. Can you hear me okay? Pick up the big, flat, wet thing. Are you even listening? You know, maybe if you had listened a little better during your marriage, your wife wouldn't want a divorce. Did you ever think of that? It wouldn't surprise me if you never threw the thing she brought you either. Thank you.

Meryl Marko at Uncabaret in Los Angeles. Meryl's most recent book is a graphic novel, We Saw Scenery. She's also in the upcoming season of the TV show, Hacks. Thanks to Greg Miller of Uncabaret. I just do. I really do. Doesn't do.

Well, the program was produced today by Robin Simeon and myself with Alex Bloomberg, Jane Marie, John Jeter, Sarah Caney, Lisa Pollock, Alyssa Shipp, and Nancy Opdyke. Our senior producer for today's show is Julie Snyder. Production up from Seth Land, Ligia Navarro, PJ Vogt, and Alvin Melleth. Music up for today's show from Jessica Hopper. Help on today's rerun from Angela Gervasi and Stone Nelson.

Special thanks today to NPR. Noah Adams' interview from 1987 was originally broadcast on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, where I was a proud staffer and was used with permission of NPR. Thanks to Ellen Weiss. Thanks to the musicians who played Starley's song in Act One. Joe McGinty on keyboard, Jeremy Chatzky on bass and electric guitar, Julia Greenberg on vocals and acoustic guitar, and Natalie Weiss sings backup, Starley Kine on tambourine.

When we first ran the show, we invited listeners to take the raw tracks of Starlee's song and mix their own versions. The response was kind of incredible. 129 entries. You can hear the winners of our breakup song contest, including the version you are hearing right now by We Were Pirates at our website, thisamericanlife.org. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.

Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torrey Malatia, who's been listening to the show over the phone this week, and he has some thoughts. Well, well, there's some great stuff in there. I'm Ira Glass, back next week with more stories of This American Life. Because you're oh so, so sad.

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