After three blissful weeks exploring the castles of England and Ireland while writing her first book, Marilyn Barnicke Belleghem returned home to find her husband of 25 years having an affair with her friend. This heartbreaking discovery brought the lingering joy from her life-changing trip to a screeching halt.
He insisted that they should try to work things out. Devastated and confused, Marilyn gave it her best. They even celebrated their 25th anniversary with a trip to France. Marilyn’s heart was broken again when she found out that he had continued the affair throughout their reconciliation. To make matters worse, Marilyn discovered that her husband’s motive for trying to patch things up with her was to get a share of some money she’d recently inherited. After 25 years of marriage, Marilyn realized she’d been conned by the man she’d given so much of her life to and with whom she’d raised children. “If someone who’s intelligent and know the ropes can be blindsided by a con man… anyone can,” concluded Marilyn.
She sought a divorce and found herself unexpectedly single after 27 years of dutiful marriage. Despite her heartbreak and betrayal, Marilyn went to work on finishing the book she started about women and their drive to please others, which she called Questing Marilyn. Marilyn spent a lot of time alone after the divorce. As the dust settled, she decided she should write another book, this time about infidelity. Marilyn did write that book, by weaving her own painful experience into Questing Home. Marilyn says that “having a good relationship with myself, the ability to know that I wasn’t the only one” who’d been through this kind of experience and to be able to “note the process” are the things that helped her the most as she healed and adjusted following the divorce. Writing Questing Home allowed her to expose herself, “note the process”, and create something that might help other women, too.
1956 1993 2003
“If I can help other people by telling my story, that’s the only way we understand that we have common stories as people.”
Marilyn learned a lot from her divorce. Once she was on her own and exposing her experience through writing about it, Marilyn says she was able to see that she had been very “controlled and manipulated” by her husband all those years. She also learned how much of our identity is attached to our names. After many years developing her professional reputation as a therapist under her married name, Marilyn decided to keep her husband’s name AND reclaim her maiden name, too.
A passionate advocate for the writing process, Marilyn emphasizes the importance of writing as a way to create and preserve family history, to witness our own experience, and to inspire others. Telling our own stories, “helps us put our experience in perspective... where have I been and where do I go next…. When we take something that is a thought and we put it into written or spoken word then we have to think about it and look at it.” Every time Marilyn has felt scared over the years, she wrote about it. This not only helped her but, she hopes through her books to have helped other women as well.
Marilyn says her next book will be about how women can “use what they’ve learned and get back on track” with being finding their authentic selves instead living in the roles others have created for them… “I believe that we are raised to live rules – we have the role of good girl or good boy – we wear the uniform and play the role of – mother, father, daughter. Yet somewhere in each of us we have a spark of individuality inside – when do we get to really express who we are? When do we say ‘I can play the role now or this is a time to be me’? How do we balance those two things out and can we live with the consequences.”
Many times, Marilyn confesses that she desperately wanted to delete her own writing thinking, ”who cares, who wants to read this? Then someone comes along and wants to hear the story.” By sharing her own experience and her knowledge as a therapist, Marilyn’s hope is to encourage other women: “If I go through struggles that’s one thing. If I can help other people by telling my story, that’s the only way we understand that we have common stories as people.”
Thank you Marilyn, for sharing your Story with us!
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