Divorces can be intensely personal. The breakdown of something design for happiness for ever can feel like a weight on one’s life and past decisions. The reality of a family breaking apart, the process and the attempt at the next phase after divorce can be a draining period in one’s life. For those gifted with the skill of writing this can become a rich area for reflection. Memoirs often encompass periods of tragedy, delving into one’s own personal failures and low points allows all of us to relate to the natural ebb and flow of ups and downs that personal choices can bring.

Recently, prominent British author Rachel Cusk released a memoir book chronicling her recent marriage and subsequent break up. She is well known throughout the UK and has had fiction as well as prominent non-fiction works published. This recent memoir titled Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation deals with her reflections on her marriage, separation and divorce, having 2 children, and how to move forward.

Displaying the personal for the world

Rachel Cusk’s first personal memoir published in 2003 chronicled her personal experience into motherhood. Writing a brutally honest reflective piece she became a target for backlash calling her “petty”, “self-absorbed” and a bad mother. It became a staple of honest motherhood books and was subsequently copied by many other women.

It can be a daunting thing putting ones personal life to the public, especially when it has to do with doubt, failure, and personal hurt. Her new memoir chronicling the breakdown of her marriage, separation and divorce offers another raw glimpse into a deep reflective thinker as she trudges through a familiar painful process.

Relate-able pains

Obviously slanted through the female prospective, “Aftermath” and books like it can provide a deeply relate-able example to other mothers that go through the divorce process. Aftermath deals deep emotional issues, depression and Cusk’s thought on feministic ideas throughout family relationship, through her own eyes. Her questioning nature and self doubt, even as a highly educated and successful women, can serve as an example for women questioning their past, present, and future when considering or even just entering into the divorce process. Everyone feels some sense of comfort when we know there are others struggling with the same serious issues in their life. Regardless of professional critiques of Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation, the introspective nature of Cusk’s writing, as raw and unabashed as it is can potentially be the kind of personal crutch that recently divorced women need to let them know they truly are not alone with their worry and fears after something as emotional trying as divorce.

Harboring sorrow and guilt over personal situations such as divorce is natural. Many divorced couples often seek therapy individually. Having a relate-able objective person to listen can go a long way in easing the psychological pains that can often permeate a person’s mind after an emotional split of a family. We can often find relief in the literary pages of other people’s similar situations. We hear stats about how thousands of couples are divorced every year, yet the divorce process can seem so constricted within one’s own world. Divorce is common enough where support groups, message boards, and friends in a circle should be able to help support someone going through a divorce. Being there for someone can mean infinitely more to them then they may realize.