Is being happy worth it? And the answer is absolutely, unequivocally, yes. - Lyz Lenz

In her book Those Who Work, Those Who Don’t: Poverty, Morality, and Family in Rural America, Jennifer Sherman posits that in places lacking resources, morality is social capital. Appearing “good” unlocks jobs and community resources. But morality is determined in a fluid way; it’s just as much about fitting in and looking the part as it is about good behavior. Being white, wearing the right clothes (not too fancy, not too dirty), being male, being married, and having children were all part of the appearance of morality. But it wasn’t just about “good” behavior. John Sadler had stretched the law in an extra-legal way to get around the tax code. But this was looked on as an example of good behavior — he was conning the government after all. This made him smart and quick-witted, a cunning businessman and someone you would respect. Hell, he was a leader in his community.

In 2022, New York Times columnist Tish Harrison Warren decried a culture of divorcing for unhappiness, writing, “I want to normalize significant periods of confusion, exhaustion, grief and unfulfillment in marriage. There’s an older couple I know who are in their fifth decade of marriage. They are funny and kind and, by almost any standard, the picture of #relationshipgoals. Early on in our marriage they told us, ‘There are times in marriage when the Bible’s call to love your enemies and the call to love your spouse are the same call.’ ” Life is, of course, not easy, and no one is going to like their partner every day. But Warren’s column makes misery in marriage sound like a necessary evil of being partnered with a man. It’s not. I refuse to believe that it has to be that way. I have two dear friends who I have known for over twenty years; we fight sometimes and disagree. Between us we’ve had three divorces and four marriages and three children. Never once have they felt like the enemy to me. And if it is that way, if the experience of being with a man means I hate him for at least a third of our marriage and he hates me, too, I’d rather not have it. No, thank you. There is no benefit to that martyrdom. To me, columns like Warren’s sound like the mentality that enables hazing rituals and cults where they sacrifice one of their own every fortnight. I was miserable, so you should be, too. I do not want that curse. I want happiness.

One year after I moved out of my house and my marriage, I wrote an essay for Glamour titled “I’m a Great Cook. Now That I’m Divorced, I’m Never Making Dinner for a Man Again.” The article outlined how for eleven years I’d cooked meals for my husband and then for our children. I had liked cooking. I loved it even. I thought of food as my offerings of love. But as our marriage dragged on, cooking became less of a joy and more of an obligation. When my marriage ended, I stopped cooking. “I stopped cooking because I wanted to feel as unencumbered as man walking through the door of his home with the expectation that something had been done for him,” I wrote. “I wanted to be free of cutting coupons and rolling dough and worrying about dinner times and feeding. I wanted to rest.