My Mom Quit Bacon And Her 40-Year Marriage On The Same Day
dilara irem | Canva “Your father is doing it again.” The “again” referred to cheating. My mother was tired. This was a movie she’d seen one too many times in their decades-long marriage.
In the past, she did as so many women of the Silent Generation did and stayed, well, silent. She was good at that. Silence. Submission to her husband. I had never seen her raise her voice to my father. Never fought back. Never stood her ground.
He was a man, after all. On our family ladder, he stood on the top rung. And kept his foot on top of her to stay there.
My mom quit bacon and her 40-year marriage on the same day
fizkes / Shutterstock
But this time was different. My mom was 72, and my advice over the years had been sinking in. Maybe most kids hope their parents stay together, but I’d been urging her for years to make a run for it.
You deserve better, I’d tell her. He’s not going to change. He’s just getting worse. And you’re miserable. My father could be a jerk to me and my brother and me as well, but my mom always got the brunt of his anger, sarcasm, and all-around jerkery.
He frequently made her the butt of jokes, embarrassed her publicly, complained about the food she prepared, and bit the hand that fed him. He never took her side nor defended her. And, he cheated. Often.
“I’m at Barbara’s,” my mom told me over the phone, crying. She’d had it. She wasn’t going back for more. I could hear the familiar pain in her voice. But I also heard something new. Relief.
Suddenly, she no longer saw herself as 72 years old
She saw herself as only 72 years — there was a life out there still to be made. There was room. There was time. I’d waited for this moment and jumped into action to help. Over the next few weeks, we put a plan together. My father, out of contrition or surrender I didn’t know, facilitated my mom’s move by getting out of the way. Within a month, we found her a new home to start her new life as a single, senior woman.
Perhaps because she’d reached the end of her emotional and mental rope with my father after so many years of his bad behavior, but my mom had no trouble making the marital break. She didn’t need therapy to work through her feelings about him. She wasn’t trauma-bonded. She had zero illusions about him changing or going back. That’s not where her trouble was.
“What about the leather one? Or the beige one with the built-in recliner? Or the plush green one with all the pillows?”
We were at a furniture store in the sofa section, our first stop of many to fill the rooms in her new house. “Which one do you like?” I asked, sharing her excitement.
In her marriage, she never got to pick out anything.
Whether it was what color to paint the wall, the type of mattress, what kind of lighting for each room, even the cars they drove and the vacations they went on, my father made the final decision.
Not to say he never asked for her input, but if her answer didn’t align with his opinion, he would dismiss her with a wave of his Father Knows Best hand. It didn’t take long for her to cede all opinions to the point where she had none.
“I don’t know,” my mom said, and looked like a little girl being asked to furnish her first-ever dollhouse. “I don’t know what I like!” she giggled, happy tears in her eyes.
It was the first time in her adult life that the decision was all up to her. No one to override or tell her she was wrong. No mistake to make because every choice was a good choice.
Whatever couch she picked (the floral one with a built-in sleeper for her grandchildren when they visited), whatever kitchen table (the light oak one with the extender for holiday get-togethers), her reading chair (the La-Z-Boy recliner perfect for afternoon naps), or her new bedspread (a Scandinavian print atop a goose down comforter).
Every single item, whether big or small, meant something special because she chose it. What she liked. What spoke to her. Every day became an adventure. A treasure hunt. An exploration of self that had been put on hold for over forty years. Her enthusiasm for each day was contagious. And I was the lucky witness to her evolution.
She lived like she had been starving and now stood before a grand feast
A grand feast held in her honor where she could sample every dish, taste every morsel, sip every drink to see what she liked and what she didn’t.
No more cooking for a husband who was never satisfied. No more eating what he wanted to eat. Before long, my mom looked and felt better than ever.
When I stayed overnight for the first time at her home, I wept with joy as I took in her new surroundings. Every room was filled with her instead of my father.
Every color is a reflection of her soul’s palette. At breakfast the next morning, we sat at the table she had picked out and ate the food she wanted to make.
Noticeably absent — the side of bacon I grew up watching my father eat. As if she could read my mind, she said, “All those years, I bought and cooked and ate it because of your dad. Turns out, I never really liked it. So, goodbye bacon, too!”
Then we laughed and planned the day ahead of us. “What do you want to do?” I asked. “Anything I want,” the little girl in her answered.
Suzanna Quintana is the founder of the Online Sanctuary for Healing After Narcissistic Abuse and the author of the Amazon bestselling book, You're Still That Girl: Get Over Your Abusive Ex for Good.
