Split Quotes

“Such silence has an actual sound, the sound of disappearance.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“I was steeped in denial, but my body knew.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“I used to loathe ambivalence; now I adore it. Ambivalence is my new best friend.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“Delusion detests focus and romance provides the veil.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“A heart can stop beating for a while, one can still live.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“Daily I walk around my small, picturesque town with a thought bubble over my head: Person Going Through A Divorce. When I look at other people, I automatically form thought bubbles over their heads. Happy Couple With Stroller. Innocent Teenage Girl With Her Whole Life Ahead Of Her. Content Grandmother And Grandfather Visiting Town Where Their Grandchildren Live With Intact Parents. Secure Housewife With Big Diamond. Undamaged Group Of Young Men On Skateboards. Good Man With Baby In BabyBjörn Who Loves His Wife. Dogs Who Never Have To Worry. Young Kids Kissing Publicly. Then every so often I see one like me, one of the shambling gaunt women without makeup, looking older than she is: Divorcing Woman Wondering How The Fuck This Happened.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“Any way I slice reality it comes out poorly, and I feel an urge to not exist, something I have never felt before; and now here it comes with conviction, almost panic. I mentally bless and exonerate anyone who has kicked a chair out from beneath her or swallowed opium in large chunks. My mind has met their environment, here in the void. I understand perfectly.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“I know one thing about men," Bunny says with finality, leaving the room to check on A. "They never die when you want them to.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“So many events and moments that seemed insignificant add up. I remember how for the last Valentine´s Day, N gave flowers but no card. In restaurants, he looked off into the middle distance while my hand would creep across the table to hold his. He would always let go first. I realize I can´t remember his last spontaneous gesture of affection.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“He left a bit too easily and with obvious relief. His feet were swift and sure on the muddy path.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“They feel life is for the taking, and that everyone deserves happiness no matter what the cost. I must remember these tricks if I ever decide to have my soul surgically removed.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“Already things are changing; it´s starting with small shit but oh it´s starting, the change, the irrevocable, impossible change.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“The snag about marriage is, it isn´t worth the divorce.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“Surprises, I feel now, are primarily a form of violence.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“Someday I will have revenge. I know in advance to keep this to myself, and everyone will be happier. I do understand that I am expected to forgive N and his girlfriend in a timely fashion, and move on to a life of vegetarian cooking and difficult yoga positions and self-realization, and make this so much easier and more pleasant for all concerned.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“Soon he was online every night until one or two a.m. Often he would wake up at three of four a.m. and go back online. He would shut down the computer screen when I walked in. In the past, he used to take the laptop to bed with him and we would both be on our laptops, hips touching. He stopped doing that, slipping off to his office instead and closing the door even when A was asleep. He started closing doors behind him. I was steeped in denial, but my body knew.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“I have a new mantra, which I chant softly to myself: "Oh My God Oh My God.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“I am going insane. Yes. That is what´s happening. Good. Insane.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“I love you as the mother of my child": the kiss of death.
Mother of His Child: demotion. I am beginning to see this truism: Mothers are not always wives. I have been stripped of a piece of self.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“I mentally bless and exonerate anyone who has kicked a chair out from beneath her or swallowed opium in large chunks. My mind has met their environment, here in the void. I understand perfectly.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“It´s like watching someone do a triple backflip dismount and land on two feet, solid, arms splayed in the air. I know I could never do it, don´t even know where I would begin to learn, but some people are built for it. He was handcrafted to leave, had practiced on other women since adolescence. I was one of an unnumbered series.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“Bushwhacked, I examine my hands. Same hands. Rings still there but no longer valid.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“How could you do that to me?" I repeat. I don´t have to itemize. He knows what I speak of.
Eventually N produces three answers, in this order:

1. "Because I am a complete rotter." I silently agree, but it´s a cop-out: I have maggots, therefore I am dead.
2. "I was stressed at work and unhappy and we were always fighting...and you know I was just crazy..."

I cut him off, saying, "You don´t get to be crazy. You did exactly what you chose to do."
Which is true, he did. It is what he has always done. He therefore seems slightly puzzled at the need for further diagnosis, which may explain his third response:

3. "I don´t know."

This, I feel instinctively, is the correct answer. How can I stay angry with him for being what he is? I was, after all, his wife, and I chose him. No coincidences, that´s what Freud said. None. Ever.
I wipe my eyes on my sleeve and walk toward the truck, saying to his general direction, "Fine. At least now I know: You don´t know."
I stop and turn around and fire one more question: a bullet demanding attention in the moment it enters the skin and spreads outward, an important bullet that must be acknowledged.
"What did you feel?"
After a lengthy pause, he answers. "I felt nothing."
And that, I realize too late, was not the whole truth, but was a valid part of the truth.
Oh, and welcome to the Serengeti. That too.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“He announces that lately he keeps losing things. "Like your wife and child," I want to say, but don´t. At fourty, I´ve learned not to say everything clever, not to score every point.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“I am replete with stamina in finding out every single fact I can about this whole affair.

Yet, I think, do I want to pull that thread? Do I want to unleash the truth, unravel deceit, and kill reality as I´ve known it? It is irreparable, if I do, from the moment we met until now. It is long. If I discover too much that is false about what I thought my past was, Time will be skewed even further. I already have a poor connection with the present. Example: I have no sense of what day it is. It´s better.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“I played possum. I did this, as the possum does, out of fear.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“Take me now, God!" I shout to the inky sky. "I´m ready."
"You´re not ready. You´re not even divorced yet," Bunny says. "You cannot die married to that man.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“I travel back in time, falling back into what I know for certain, the historical data I cling to in order to not go mad, not assume I made a suicidal and well-informed error in marrying this man.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“I am not ready to think of him as either insane or evil, to consider in full how I could love and have a child with such a person. I am not ready to think about anything, except ways in which this may still be averted.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“How do you know? How best to ensure his nervous breakdown?" I ask.

"Keep going," Christian says. "Just go on as if nothing has happened. We all hate that.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce