And I was telling him, truthfully, that there was nothing to withdraw.

I had done all the real work of the marriage alone, and I would simply continue doing it alone, minus the exhausting performance of pretending I wasn’t.

Loneliness inside a marriage is worse than loneliness outside one, because inside a marriage you are not permitted to name it; you must keep performing the partnership for the benefit of a man who isn’t providing it.

I was done performing.

That was the freedom in it — not that I would never be alone again, but that I would no longer have to lie about it.

Chapter 20 — Her Grandmother’s Name