The Man Without a Title

The Old Business Card

For twenty-two years I had a title: husband. For eighteen of those years I had another: father. The two together made a third: provider. These three words were load-bearing walls. Everything else in my life—the job, the house, the weekend routines, the person I saw in the mirror—rested on them.

When Elena filed for divorce, she didn't just end a marriage. She pulled out a wall. And the ceiling came down.

What Nobody Tells You

Nobody tells you that divorce, for a man who built his identity around his family, is an identity crisis dressed as a legal proceeding. Everyone asks about logistics. Who gets the house? How's the custody schedule? Are you keeping the accountant or getting a new one? (I am the accountant. I'm keeping myself. Small mercy.)

Nobody asks: Who are you now?

Because the answer is: I don't know. And men aren't supposed to say that at forty-eight.

Saturday Morning, 7 AM

I have the kids every other weekend. This is a Saturday with them. Sofia is thirteen and communicates primarily through sighs. Marco is fifteen and communicates primarily through one-word answers and the top of his head, which is all I see because he's always looking at his phone.

I make pancakes. I've gotten good at pancakes. It's the one domestic skill I brought out of the marriage fully formed. Everything else—the laundry, the grocery lists, the knowledge of which kid needs what medication and when—I'm learning at forty-eight like a freshman.

Sofia says, "Dad, these are actually good."

"Actually" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, but I'll take it.

The Apartment

I live in a two-bedroom apartment on Arden Way. The furniture is from IKEA because that's what divorced men buy. The bed frame is called MALM. The bookshelf is called BILLY. I have named more IKEA furniture in six months than I named emotions in twenty-two years of marriage.

“I have named more IKEA furniture in six months than I named emotions in twenty-two years of marriage. This is not a joke. This is a diagnosis.” Click to tweet →

This is not a joke. This is a diagnosis.

Tuesday Night, 9 PM

The apartment is quiet in a way the house never was. Not peaceful quiet. Loud quiet. The kind that asks questions.

What do you actually like?

I don't know. I liked what Elena liked. We watched her shows. We visited her family. We ate at the restaurants she chose. I'm not blaming her—she chose because I didn't. Because I didn't know what I wanted. Because wanting things for myself felt selfish, and the only sanctioned want was: provide for the family.

What do you do for fun?

The question paralyzes me. Fun was not a line item in the budget of my identity. Work was. Bills were. Coaching Marco's Little League was, but that was about Marco, not me. The question—what do I do, for me, that has no utility, no ROI, no benefit to anyone except my own enjoyment—is a question I haven't answered since I was maybe twenty-two.

The List

My therapist (yes, I have a therapist; it only took the complete structural collapse of my life to make that call) asked me to make a list of things I enjoyed before I was a husband.

The list:

1. Fishing

2. Cooking (not just pancakes—real cooking, the kind with spices I chose myself)

3. Playing guitar (badly)

4. Hiking

5. Reading novels (not business books, not self-help, novels—stories about people who aren't me)

I stared at this list for ten minutes. Five things. Five things that existed before the title "husband" absorbed them all. They didn't disappear because Elena took them. They disappeared because I stopped feeding them. I let my identity become a monoculture—one crop, one purpose—and when the field flooded, there was nothing else growing.

What I'm Building

I bought a fishing rod. It's leaning against the wall next to BILLY the bookshelf. I haven't used it yet. But it's there.

I signed up for a cooking class. Wednesday nights. I'm the only man in the class. The instructor asked why I enrolled and I said, "I realized I've been eating like a man who doesn't care about himself." She laughed. I didn't.

I play guitar for twenty minutes before bed. I am terrible. Sofia heard me through the phone last week and said, "Dad, is that a guitar or a cat?" I told her it was a cat. She laughed. That laugh was worth more than any chord I could play correctly.

I am building an identity from scratch at forty-eight. It's slow. It's embarrassing. It's necessary.

To the Men Who Are Where I Was

If you can't answer "what do you do for fun" without referencing your family, your job, or your obligations—start there. That's the crack in the wall.

You are not your title. You are not "husband" or "provider" or "the one who handles things." You are a person with preferences and curiosities and a list of five things you abandoned somewhere along the way.

“You are not your title. You are not "husband" or "provider" or "the one who handles things."” Click to tweet →

Go find the list. Buy the fishing rod. Take the cooking class. Play the guitar badly.

You don't have to wait for the ceiling to fall.