Much to my disbelief—and if I’m being honest, my frustration—life didn’t stop when Mike walked out the door. The dogs still needed to be walked. I still had patients to see. I still came home to an apartment that no longer felt like home. And somehow, at the end of it all, I still had a yoga class to teach.
Before class that evening, I met my friend Karen for a beer. She was one of the first people I told outside of work. I don’t remember much about what we talked about. I just remember needing someone to know before I walked into the studio.
Looking back, I think I taught that class for myself as much as I did for my students. For sixty minutes I had somewhere my mind needed to be. Breath. Movement. Presence. Sequencing. I couldn’t disappear into my own thoughts because twenty people were trusting me to guide theirs.
More than that, I needed to be somewhere that belonged only to me. The apartment was full of memories. Every room seemed to echo with the life we’d built together. Yoga had no connection to Mike. The studio was mine. The community was mine. My students, the other instructors—they knew me simply as Allison. Not as someone’s wife. Just me.
I don’t remember much about the class itself.
I only remember walking out feeling like I’d been allowed to put my grief down for an hour.
By Saturday morning, I knew I couldn’t keep the news to myself any longer. A few of our closest friends had been away on a European cruise, and I’d intentionally waited until they returned before saying anything. It felt wrong to interrupt a once-in-a-lifetime trip with news that would change all of our lives. But now they were home, and if there was ever a moment I needed my people, this was it.
I sat alone in the grocery store parking lot staring at my phone longer than I care to admit before finally sending the message. One thing I remember writing was asking them not to reach out to Mike just yet. I told them that he would contact them when he was ready. Looking back now, I realize I was unknowingly speaking for him. At the time, I genuinely believed I was protecting him. Years later, I’d learn that he experienced it very differently. To him, it felt like I was trying to control the narrative. It’s funny how two people can live through the exact same moment and carry away entirely different versions of what happened. Neither one of us was trying to be cruel. We were simply trying to survive.
As if life couldn’t decide whether it wanted to break my heart or restore a little bit of it, one of our closest friends gave birth that same morning. A text came through inviting us to the hospital to meet their daughter. Us. I remember texting Mike to ask if he could go earlier in the day so we wouldn’t arrive at the same time. He agreed without hesitation.
When I walked into that hospital room, I had already decided I wasn’t going to say anything about the separation. This wasn’t the place for that conversation, and it certainly wasn’t the day. A brand-new life had just begun. Heartbreak could wait another hour.
So we talked.
About Italy.
About work.
About ordinary things.
At least we tried to.
I don’t remember much of what was actually said because I spent most of that visit trying to keep myself from crying. Eventually, while Kerryann was distracted with the baby, I quietly asked Christian if I could tell him something.
“I don’t want to cast a shadow over today,” I remember saying.
He looked at me for a moment before answering, “This is what friends are for.”
Those six words were all the permission I needed.
When I told him, the expression on his face was one I’d already begun to recognize—complete disbelief. He glanced over toward Kerryann, who immediately sensed something had shifted.
“Allison,” she said softly, “come sit down. What’s happened?”
I told her.
Before either of them said anything else, they looked at each other.
“Mike was just here,” one of them said quietly. “He didn’t say anything. We had no idea. He seemed… normal.”
I remember thinking how strange that was.
And then almost immediately realizing it wasn’t strange at all.
It was exactly who Mike was.
He had always carried things quietly, keeping the hardest parts of himself tucked safely out of view. Looking back, it makes perfect sense that he could spend an hour celebrating the birth of a friend’s daughter without saying a word about what had happened the night before.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” she said.
“I don’t think anything makes sense anymore,” I answered.
Looking back, I think I spent more energy trying to convince them that I was going to be okay than I did actually allowing myself to not be okay. They asked what I needed, and without even thinking I looked down at the tiny little girl sleeping peacefully beside us.
“I just need to love on this sweet baby of yours.”
And that’s exactly what I did.
For the next hour, I barely took my eyes off her.
At the time, I couldn’t have explained why holding her brought me so much peace. Looking back now, I think she represented something I desperately needed without realizing it. Hope. Proof that life continues. That the world doesn’t stop turning simply because yours has.
That little girl unknowingly became the beginning of something for me. Later that day, I started what I called my Thirty Days of Gratitude. Every single day, I forced myself to find one thing worth holding onto. It wasn’t because I felt grateful. Most days I didn’t. It was because I needed to believe there was still something beautiful left to notice.
By then, I’d already changed my Facebook profile picture. I’d hidden years of photos of Mike and me, and I’d started sharing my Gratitude challenge. It didn’t take much for people to piece together that something had happened.
Looking back now, I don’t think those posts were really about gratitude.
They were probably the closest I knew how to come to asking for help.
At the time, I would have never admitted that. I’d spent most of my life being the capable one—the one who held everything together, the one other people leaned on. “I’m fine. I’ve got this,” wasn’t just something I said; it had quietly become part of who I believed I was. I didn’t know how to tell people I was falling apart. I certainly didn’t know how to accept help without immediately wondering how I could repay it.
So instead, I posted gratitude.
Maybe part of me hoped people would notice.
Not so they would tell me I was right.
Not so they would take sides.
I think I just wanted someone to quietly see that I wasn’t okay.
Years later, I heard that Mike’s sister had been upset by how public I’d been about the separation. I’ve thought about that more than once over the years. At the time, I wasn’t trying to tell a story or control a narrative. I was simply trying to make it through the day with the emotional tools I had.
It wouldn’t be until years later—after my second marriage had ended—that I finally learned to say the words I couldn’t have imagined saying back then:
I’m not fine.
I don’t have this.
I need help.
-A
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